The Affirmative Action Case Isn’t Closed

Last year I made a small mistake in discussing a big issue, Proposition 209, the California ballot initiative to abolish affirmative action programs in public contracting, hiring and school admissions.

As is our policy, The Times corrected my mistake right away. And while it was acutely embarrassing, I let the error pass without further comment. I figured I’d get a chance to further explain my thinking on affirmative action sooner or later, since the controversy over Proposition 209 would not end with last November’s voting. Little did I realize how poetic the timing of my next opportunity would be.

Last week, almost exactly a year after Proposition 209 was approved 54% to 45%, two events illustrated that this country is still no closer to resolving the future of affirmative action.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a legal challenge to Proposition 209, effectively clearing the way for the initiative to take full effect. While some of the measure’s proponents proclaimed it a landmark ruling that means the death of affirmative action, it is no such thing. For in refusing to take the Proposition 209 case, the court also refused discussion of the many government-endorsed preferences that are unaffected by Proposition 209, like the veterans preference in public hiring, or the admission of star athletes into public universities despite lower grades than other applicants: Why should these be allowed to continue after preferences for women and minorities are eliminated?

The high court could have contributed to an important and obviously still ongoing national dialogue. Instead the nine justices took a collective dive that a gutless boxer would have envied.

But the court’s cowardice was put in proper perspective the very next day, when voters in Houston went to the polls and defeated a ballot measure modeled after Proposition 209, thereby breathing renewed life into affirmative action.

Of course, as with any major ballot measure--including, it must be remembered, California’s vote in favor of Proposition 209--there are many interpretations as to what motivated the majority of Houston voters to cast ballots as they did. The loudest whining came from critics of Houston’s affirmative action policies, who claimed that voters were confused by the ballot measure’s language. (Some opponents of Proposition 209 made the same argument after last year’s voting here.)

What is a reasonable person to make of the conflicting results in California and Texas? Maybe that Americans are sending conflicting signals on affirmative action because they remain genuinely conflicted about the issue.

Most Americans realize that there are no easy answers to this nation’s long, painful history of racial, religious and cultural discrimination. So a careful affirmative action policy must be cast in shades of gray, rather than the black-or-white favored by a few beady-eyed zealots.

That is the point I was trying to make last year, on the Sunday before election day, when I explained why I had finally decided to vote against Proposition 209.

My reasons were purely pragmatic. I aspire as much as anyone to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a society where people are judged “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” But I also know that that wonderful vision is still more dream than reality, that in the real world discrimination still exists, and it affects how business is done in both the public and private sectors.

What worried me most about Proposition 209 was that it could be interpreted as barring programs to recruit women and underrepresented minorities into California’s many fine public colleges and universities. I recalled that when I was fortunate enough to attend UCLA on a scholarship 30 years ago, there was one Latino on campus for every 1,000 students.

I pointed out that UCLA and other UC and Cal State campuses had dramatically improved the number of Latino students since then, with the help of some aggressive recruitment programs. It was to protect minority recruitment at a time when California’s population is becoming so incredibly diverse that I urged a “no” vote on Proposition 209.

The error I made was in citing the current percentage of Latinos at UCLA. I pushed the wrong button on my calculator and came up with 4.5% instead of the correct number, a far more impressive 22%. Obviously I wasn’t a math major.

But a silly math error does not discredit the case I was trying to make for maintaining some elements of affirmative action, rather than eliminating it entirely. And subsequent events--especially a drop in the number of underrepresented minority students applying for, and being admitted to, UC’s law and medical schools--seem to validate my concern.

So if I was wrong in my mathematical calculations, then let me suggest that the ideologues who would reduce affirmative action to positive cliches and negative buzzwords are wrong on an even more important point. The controversial social policy they so ardently detest is far from dead and may still be needed.

And if my mistake was justifiably embarrassing, then even greater shame on the justices of the Supreme Court for their whopper in refusing to consider Proposition 209.