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California Asian-Americans show strength in blocking affirmative action revival
By Katy Murphy
Stunned by an unexpected uprising within their party's minority base, Democratic lawmakers on Monday dropped a push to reverse California's 16-year-old ban on affirmative action in college admissions.
Constitutional Amendment 5 -- which would have put the issue before voters -- cleared the state Senate in late January on a party-line vote. But as word of the bill spread, so did resistance, mostly from families concerned that race-conscious admission policies would unfairly disadvantage Asian applicants to the intensely competitive University of California system and its flagship campuses, Berkeley and UCLA.
The strong opposition and quick success of a relatively small and reliably Democratic ethnic group -- 14 percent of the state's population in 2012 -- revealed a new political strength.
The bill's rapid demise culminated with about-face by three Asian-American senators who voted for the bill in January. And its author, Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, is making no promises about its revival.
"I'd like to bring it back," Hernandez said in a phone interview. "I believe in it. I believe we need to make sure there's equal opportunity for everyone in the state of California."
Republicans won't go along with that, their state Senate leader said Monday. "Republicans will continue to oppose this measure in any way, shape or form," said Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar.
Black, Latino and Native American students made up almost 54 percent of California's high school graduates in 2012 -- but just 27 percent of all freshmen, UC-wide, and 16 percent of UC Berkeley's freshmen class that year.
Few issues are as personal to voters as education, which explains the intense negative reaction some had to the bill, said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative policy analysis group at Stanford University.
"This was remarkably bad politics on the Democrats' part," Whalen said. "I can think of few things more destructive than pitting one constituency of a party against another."
Last week, saying they had received thousands of calls and emails from constituents, Senators Leland Yee, D-San Francisco; Ted Lieu, D-Torrance; and Carol Liu, D-La Cañada/Flintridge asked Assembly Speaker John Perez to stop the bill.
"As lifelong advocates for the Asian-American and other communities, we would never support a policy that we believed would negatively impact our children," they wrote in a letter to Perez.
In 1996, California became the first state to outlaw affirmative action in public university admissions and state hiring, a policy that took effect in 1998. The amendment would have allowed voters to lift that ban, either this fall or in 2016.
Hernandez and others have said that misinformation about what affirmative action would mean -- such as racial quotas for new freshmen -- spread quickly, stoking parents' fears about their children's chances getting into UC, the state's public research university system.
Asian-Americans make up about 38 percent of UC undergraduates and have a high rate of freshman admission to its nine undergraduate campuses -- 73 percent in 2013, compared to 63 percent of all in-state applicants.
Using racial quotas in admissions would be unconstitutional; recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have strictly limited consideration of race in public university admissions. UC officials last week said any suggestion of quotas is irresponsible: "We have never done that, and we never would," said Nina Robinson, UC's associate president and chief policy adviser.
Still, some Chinese-language news outlets reported such erroneous assertions, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political-science professor at UC Riverside who directs the National Asian-American Survey.
"I think there's a lot of anxiety and fear, and when you have bad information it's hard to address some of those concerns," he said.
A Change.org petition to stop the referendum had more than 112,000 signatures on Monday.
One Cupertino mother who helped to organize other parents and friends against the amendment said the news came as a relief. "This bill was kind of personal," said Jayati Goel. "I felt like I need to do something."
One reason Democrats were caught off guard is that Asian-Americans have historically supported affirmative action. Indeed, many still believe race should be considered in college admissions. Some Asian organizations -- including the Southeast Asian Resource and Action Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and Filipino Advocates for Justice in Union City and Oakland -- advocate such policies, noting that not all Asian ethnicities are well represented in higher education.
But the scarcity of seats in UC provoked intense opposition among others -- and Republicans pounced on the opportunity. Top GOP leaders of both chambers spoke at "Stop SCA 5" forum Sunday in Cupertino, sponsored by the San Francisco-based Chinese-American Institute for Empowerment.
Republicans are often flustered by how to appeal to ethnic minorities, Whalen said. The controversy "presents Republicans something they didn't have a month ago, which is an opening to create a dialogue in a very tangible way," he said. "It's your child's education. It's your child's path to college."
Others aren't so sure the GOP has much of an opening. Now that the Democrats have backed away from the bill, "I don't know that it's going to change the way that Asian-Americans feel about the two political parties," said Melissa Michelson, who teaches California politics and political science at Menlo College in Atherton.
But, Michelson said, the rise and fall of Constitutional Amendment 5 revealed the growing political power of the state's Asian-American voters -- and she doesn't expect state lawmakers to bring the bill back.
"I don't think they're going to," she said, "because what they found is trying to undo the ban on affirmative action makes bad things happen."
California Asian-Americans show strength in blocking affirmative action revival - San Jose Mercury News
By Katy Murphy
Stunned by an unexpected uprising within their party's minority base, Democratic lawmakers on Monday dropped a push to reverse California's 16-year-old ban on affirmative action in college admissions.
Constitutional Amendment 5 -- which would have put the issue before voters -- cleared the state Senate in late January on a party-line vote. But as word of the bill spread, so did resistance, mostly from families concerned that race-conscious admission policies would unfairly disadvantage Asian applicants to the intensely competitive University of California system and its flagship campuses, Berkeley and UCLA.
The strong opposition and quick success of a relatively small and reliably Democratic ethnic group -- 14 percent of the state's population in 2012 -- revealed a new political strength.
The bill's rapid demise culminated with about-face by three Asian-American senators who voted for the bill in January. And its author, Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, is making no promises about its revival.
"I'd like to bring it back," Hernandez said in a phone interview. "I believe in it. I believe we need to make sure there's equal opportunity for everyone in the state of California."
Republicans won't go along with that, their state Senate leader said Monday. "Republicans will continue to oppose this measure in any way, shape or form," said Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar.
Black, Latino and Native American students made up almost 54 percent of California's high school graduates in 2012 -- but just 27 percent of all freshmen, UC-wide, and 16 percent of UC Berkeley's freshmen class that year.
Few issues are as personal to voters as education, which explains the intense negative reaction some had to the bill, said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative policy analysis group at Stanford University.
"This was remarkably bad politics on the Democrats' part," Whalen said. "I can think of few things more destructive than pitting one constituency of a party against another."
Last week, saying they had received thousands of calls and emails from constituents, Senators Leland Yee, D-San Francisco; Ted Lieu, D-Torrance; and Carol Liu, D-La Cañada/Flintridge asked Assembly Speaker John Perez to stop the bill.
"As lifelong advocates for the Asian-American and other communities, we would never support a policy that we believed would negatively impact our children," they wrote in a letter to Perez.
In 1996, California became the first state to outlaw affirmative action in public university admissions and state hiring, a policy that took effect in 1998. The amendment would have allowed voters to lift that ban, either this fall or in 2016.
Hernandez and others have said that misinformation about what affirmative action would mean -- such as racial quotas for new freshmen -- spread quickly, stoking parents' fears about their children's chances getting into UC, the state's public research university system.
Asian-Americans make up about 38 percent of UC undergraduates and have a high rate of freshman admission to its nine undergraduate campuses -- 73 percent in 2013, compared to 63 percent of all in-state applicants.
Using racial quotas in admissions would be unconstitutional; recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have strictly limited consideration of race in public university admissions. UC officials last week said any suggestion of quotas is irresponsible: "We have never done that, and we never would," said Nina Robinson, UC's associate president and chief policy adviser.
Still, some Chinese-language news outlets reported such erroneous assertions, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political-science professor at UC Riverside who directs the National Asian-American Survey.
"I think there's a lot of anxiety and fear, and when you have bad information it's hard to address some of those concerns," he said.
A Change.org petition to stop the referendum had more than 112,000 signatures on Monday.
One Cupertino mother who helped to organize other parents and friends against the amendment said the news came as a relief. "This bill was kind of personal," said Jayati Goel. "I felt like I need to do something."
One reason Democrats were caught off guard is that Asian-Americans have historically supported affirmative action. Indeed, many still believe race should be considered in college admissions. Some Asian organizations -- including the Southeast Asian Resource and Action Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and Filipino Advocates for Justice in Union City and Oakland -- advocate such policies, noting that not all Asian ethnicities are well represented in higher education.
But the scarcity of seats in UC provoked intense opposition among others -- and Republicans pounced on the opportunity. Top GOP leaders of both chambers spoke at "Stop SCA 5" forum Sunday in Cupertino, sponsored by the San Francisco-based Chinese-American Institute for Empowerment.
Republicans are often flustered by how to appeal to ethnic minorities, Whalen said. The controversy "presents Republicans something they didn't have a month ago, which is an opening to create a dialogue in a very tangible way," he said. "It's your child's education. It's your child's path to college."
Others aren't so sure the GOP has much of an opening. Now that the Democrats have backed away from the bill, "I don't know that it's going to change the way that Asian-Americans feel about the two political parties," said Melissa Michelson, who teaches California politics and political science at Menlo College in Atherton.
But, Michelson said, the rise and fall of Constitutional Amendment 5 revealed the growing political power of the state's Asian-American voters -- and she doesn't expect state lawmakers to bring the bill back.
"I don't think they're going to," she said, "because what they found is trying to undo the ban on affirmative action makes bad things happen."
California Asian-Americans show strength in blocking affirmative action revival - San Jose Mercury News
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