Selling Equality’s Higher Costs

Supporters of Proposition 209 say this about repealing public-sector affirmative action programs for women and minorities: Taxpayers would save millions of dollars. Some supporters also say this: Californians could be morally obligated for billions in new spending.

The difference depends on which direction California travels if Proposition 209 passes Nov. 5.

One road is simply expressed: Eliminate government programs, save money.

But billions in new spending?

That is a more ambitious path. Some of those in the vanguard of Proposition 209 argue that outlawing established equal-opportunity programs increases society’s obligation to upgrade schools, health care and other services so California’s downtrodden may become better prepared to compete head-on.

Dreamy?

Perhaps. But champions of Proposition 209, including University of California Regent Ward Connerly and Gov. Pete Wilson, insist on voicing such dreams, intensifying edgy emotions in this gathering political storm.

Connerly and his inner circle argue that repeal of affirmative action for state and local government employment, contracting and education would not be the end of it. They say their goal remains true fairness in society, and this is not achieved by granting breaks to some groups but by improving the means so that everyone is equally prepared to seize opportunity.

“It will cost a lot . . . to do this right,” said Connerly, who is chairman and chief spokesman for the 209 campaign.

Many on the opposing side find this a dubious argument, perhaps dubious to the point of being disingenuous. After all, the backers of Proposition 209 are not presenting voters any replacement alternatives, complete with price tag, in the November election.

“Proposition 209 is simply a retreat, nothing more,” said Thomas Saenz, Los Angeles regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “The drafters included nothing, not even in the vaguest, unenforceable, hortatory language about rebuilding something on the demolished system of equal opportunity.

“They have come up with this after the fact, when they realized their message wasn’t going to fly on its own,” he said.

On the other hand, it is a notable development itself when California conservative leaders suggest that they, and taxpayers at large, might be obliged to undertake deeper reforms in society for the benefit of the disadvantaged and equal opportunity. That idea has been voiced traditionally by liberals.

Recently, Connerly and two other 209 leaders met with editors and reporters at The Times. They conceded that their amendment to the state Constitution would have immediate consequences such as reducing minority admissions to the University of California. But they insisted that society would be compelled to face up to unmet needs of the disadvantaged.

“The number of underrepresented minorities is going to go down,” Connerly said about UC admissions. “If you give someone a preference, and then you take that preference away, the numbers are going to go down.”

Gail Heriot, co-chairwoman of the campaign and law professor at the University of San Diego, added, “Preferences have had the very bad effect . . . of masking a massive problem.”

She reasoned that affirmative action programs such as automatic university admission preferences for minorities have become an ineffective shortcut to try to equalize opportunities. The better alternative, she said, would be to reform schools so that all children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, finish high school with the academic means to compete equally.

But wouldn’t that require a remaking of schools unprecedented in contemporary California history? At this point, Connerly agreed: “It will cost a lot . . . to do this right.”

How much, these leaders were asked?

The third member of the group, state Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco), noted that Gov. Wilson this year sought $971 million to reduce public school class size by about one-third in first through third grades, plus another $152 million for additional reading materials for grades one and two.

Those numbers provide an inkling of what it could cost for the much larger task of upgrading all schools and equalizing vast differences in educational quality. Kopp was not ready to put forth an estimate of such costs but did not object when a questioner suggested that it would be in the billions.

Kopp said that once public-sector affirmative action preferences had been outlawed, voters would be more sympathetic to increased school spending. “Californians would vote for it,” he said. And furthermore, Kopp said, “Sure,” he would be happy to personally sponsor such a ballot proposition.

Earlier this year, Wilson offered his own view on the topic. He is a champion of Proposition 209 and signed the ballot argument for it, but said the state could not stop at that.

In lieu of affirmative action, Wilson said in July, California must prepare children “so they can compete and win on the basis of individual merit.”

Wilson said schools needed upgrading, particularly inner-city schools for the benefit of the disadvantaged. And more, Wilson said California must assist needy children with “childhood health care beginning with prenatal care.” And he said the role of parental guidance was so important that “we’ve got to find a surrogate parent, a mentor” for children left at home without adult supervision.

At the time, Wilson was hardly taken seriously as an advocate for the disadvantaged. Rather than spark an enthusiastic debate, he brought on a perfunctory denouncement.

After all, he rested his argument on existing health programs and private mentorship efforts that touch only a fraction of the disadvantaged population. Where is the money, his critics asked in disbelief, where are the tangible proposals to expand services?

Wilson’s subsequent program to reduce class size was better received, but skeptics still noted that inner-city youngsters gained nothing on students who come from more prosperous communities.

Opponents of the ballot initiative find all these over-the-horizon assurances a maddening distraction in this campaign. They suspect a ploy to assuage the guilt swing that voters may feel about society’s unfairness and historical prejudice--as if to say that 209 will mean opportunity for those on the margins.

San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown is among many who insist that it will not, and that all the past proves it.

“Proposition 209 wipes out all the tools created and envisioned to ensure an equal chance for women and people of color in school and the workplace,” he said. “Wipe away this equal chance and the clock turns back to when discrimination was commonplace.”

None of this is to suggest that education, health care and government policy by themselves are the only barriers to equal opportunity, far from it. Or that schools, nurses and mentors, no matter how good, are capable of sending forth young people whose potential has been equally developed. And neither do these arguments address what happens to the tens of thousands of Californians from underrepresented groups who might be caught in the middle--without benefit of affirmative action or upgraded government services.

But the back-and-forth does serve to illustrate that the impending decision on Proposition 209 has ramifications that could be vast.

Viewed in closer focus, without thought to future social responsibility, the debate over Proposition 209 and money assumes more familiar outlines.

The nonpartisan legislative analyst’s office in Sacramento prepared its report for the November ballot pamphlet and concluded that Proposition 209, standing alone, would save taxpayers “tens of millions of dollars each year” in lower costs for outside contracts.

Other savings could be expected by eliminating administrative costs for affirmative action programs in education, but that money would, by law, be diverted to other school and university programs, the report said.

On behalf of the initiative, the Claremont Institute’s Golden State Center for Policy Studies offered what it said was a “very conservative” estimate of at least $203 million in savings for government and $130 million for businesses that provide services to government.

Opponents of Proposition 209 make different calculations. Barbara Bergman, an economist at American University in Washington and author of the book “In Defense of Affirmative Action,” prepared a study that concluded that taxpayers would be liable for first-year costs of $414 million if increased litigation and crime are considered.

In the end, money is only a small part of the affirmative action equation. But the wallet is often held dearly close to the heart, and the price of fairness is clearly no easy matter to negotiate.