The effort to bring back affirmative action in limited form is dead

By Mikhail Zinshteyn (CALMATTERS) – A proposed California constitutional amendment to permit some aspects of affirmative action won’t appear on the ballot this year because its author feared voters wouldn’t pass the measure — but he also vowed to bring the proposal back for a future state election. The measure, known as Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7, would not have fully overturned Proposition 209, which state voters passed in 1996 and created the country’s first ban on racial preferences, including affirmative action in public university admissions. Instead, it sought to allow state agencies to send the governor a waiver request to sidestep some of Proposition 209’s restrictions if academic research showed those programs would improve the health, economic or educational outcomes of specific demographic groups. An effort to undo Proposition 209 was voted down by Californians in 2020. The proposed amendment was one of 14 priority legislative efforts this year backed by the California Legislative Black Caucus. Those were informed by a state-funded reparations task force report that included more than 100 financial and legal recommendations to combat the legacy of slavery and racism in California. There are “so many propositions sucking up additional financial resources,” said the measure’s author, Corey...