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Ask Your California State Senator to Support ACA 5!
ACA 5 will allow Californian voters to remove an outdated and antiquated law that restricts local and state leaders from minimizing inequality and promoting economic fairness. This measure seeks to prevent continued discrimination against women and people of color by allowing gender, racial and ethnic diversity to be considered as one of many factors in public employment, public contracting, and public education. California is one of only eight states to have an anti-equal opportunity ban. The State Assembly has passed the act, but the Senate needs to pass it by June 25 in order to make it on the November ballot!
Proposition 209 (Prop. 209), entitled the California Civil Rights Initiative, approved by California voters in 1996, added Article I, section 31 to the California Constitution to prohibit race- and gender-conscious remedies that rectified the underutilization of women and people of color in public employment, contracting and education. The anti-equal opportunity measure ended almost all programs designed to open the doors of equal opportunity for women and people of color in California’s public sector. Affirmative action and equal opportunity programs began in earnest with the Kennedy administration’s Executive Order 10925, which required all government contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” Federal statutes required government entities to take proactive steps to ensure fair and equal opportunities for previously excluded groups. For example, the Public Works Employment Act of 1977 required any local entity that received federal funds for public works projects to ensure that a specified portion of those funds went to a M/WBE (minority or women-owned business enterprise).
In California, prior to Proposition 209, the opportunity gap faced by women and people of color had begun to shrink as state agencies enacted policies to eliminate traditional patterns of segregation and exclusion in the workforce and to increase the representation of women and minorities in the state service, without effectuating quota systems (Regents of University of California v. Bakke). However, after the passage of Prop 209 California’s interest in supporting the equal participation of women and addressing the historical and present displays of gender bias and in creating policies to enforce anti-discrimination in the workplace and on public projects were impeded. California ended its MWBE program due to the passage of Prop 209 and only a few MWBEs regained contracts with the state. California’s MWBEs have lost $1 billion annually in lost public contract awards directly due to Prop. 209 barriers.
Many businesses owned by women and people of color closed and most procurement and sub- contracting processes remain effectively closed to these groups due to the changes brought on by Prop 209. The impact of Prop 209 has hindered the State’s ability to eliminate discrimination and disparity. It diminished the diversity efforts for our civil servants including agency/department leadership; our teachers, staff, faculty, administrators on all levels of education and our emergency responders including police and firefighters. Moreover, it directly led to 12-60% reduction in admission and enrollment of students of color at the University of California depending on location. Importantly, Proposition 209 is unnecessary and undesirable because it eliminates affirmative action even when it is necessary to achieve a compelling purpose under the United States constitutional law and it thus has had a devastating effect on diversity and remedying discrimination in California.
Ask Your California State Senator to Support ACA 5!
Ask Your California State Senator to Support ACA 5!
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Ask Your California State Senator to Support ACA 5!
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