New York Times
California: New Effort Against Race-Blind Admissions

Associated Press
Calif race-based admissions law challenged anew

Los Angeles Times
Federal suit planned against UC over ban on affirmative action
Activists challenge Proposition 209, charging that the 1996 law on university admissions violates right to equal protection under the Constitution

Contra Costa Times / Oakland Tribune
Students sue to restore affirmative action at UC

The articles listed above are reprinted in full on the lower portion of this page.

New York Times
February 17, 2010
National Briefing | West
California: New Effort Against Race-Blind Admissions
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Any Means Necessary, an affirmative action group, is renewing efforts to overturn the state law that prohibits public universities from considering race in admissions. The group filed a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, challenging the constitutionality of a ballot measure approved by California voters in 1996. Both a federal appeals court and the California Supreme Court have rebuffed earlier challenges to the law, Proposition 209. The complaint says two United States Supreme Court rulings in affirmative action cases since those earlier decisions warrant another effort to invalidate the part of Proposition 209 that deals with university admissions.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Associated Press
Calif race-based admissions law challenged anew
By LISA LEFF (AP) - February 17, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO — The law that bars the University of California from considering race in student admissions violates the civil rights of black, Latino and Native American students who are underrepresented at the state's most prestigious campuses and blocked from seeking redress through the school's governing board, a class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges.

The federal court suit was brought by the Michigan-based, pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary. It challenges the constitutionality of Proposition 209, a ballot measure approved by California voters in 1996 that prohibited racial or gender preferences in public contracting, education and employment.

A federal appeals court and the California Supreme Court have rebuffed earlier efforts to overturn the 13-year-old law. But Shanta Driver, the group's lead counsel, said a renewed federal challenge is timely because the U.S. Supreme Court has since issued a pair of rulings upholding some school desegregation programs. The gap between Latino and black high school graduation rates and UC enrollment has grown since Proposition 209 was enacted.

"Thirteen years of a ban on affirmative action in the state of California has left, in particular UCLA and Berkeley, with just pitiably low numbers of black and Latino students," Driver said.

At the heart of the complaint is the claim that minority students and their parents are being uniquely disadvantaged in violation of their due process rights because Proposition 209 prevented the university's governing Board of Regents from setting admissions policies that include race, gender and ethnicity, but not other characteristics, as factors.

"You can't have a white majority create a situation in which the only people who are barred from going to their regents and saying, 'Adjust the admissions system so more of our sons and daughters can get in' are black, Latino and Native American," Driver said.

UC spokesman Ricardo Vasquez said university lawyers were examining the lawsuit but that it was too soon for officials to comment on it. President Mark Yudof has criticized Proposition 209 in the past.

According to the suit, Latino, black and Native American students make up one-quarter of the freshmen enrolled at UC's nine undergraduate campuses this year — a higher percentage than in 1996. But because underrepresented minorities also comprise a bigger share of all public high school graduates — 48 percent compared with 39 percent in 1996 — their presence at UC schools has not kept pace in the absence of affirmative action, the complaint claims.

Driver said that while a trial judge must first decide whether to hear or dismiss the case, her aim is to get the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to take another look at Proposition 209. In 1997, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit ruled unanimously to uphold the measure, which was passed by 54 percent of California voters.

Voters in Washington, Michigan and Nebraska have passed laws similar to Proposition 209. A 1996 court order in Texas and a 2000 vote by the Florida Legislature banned the use of race in school admissions in those states.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Los Angeles Times
Federal suit planned against UC over ban on affirmative action
Activists challenge Proposition 209, charging that the 1996 law on university admissions violates right to equal protection under the Constitution.
February 16, 2010 By Larry Gordon

Seeking to increase the ranks of black, Latino and Native American students at the University of California, civil rights activists said they will file a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging the state law that bans affirmative action in admissions.

The suit contends that Proposition 209, which was passed by California voters in 1996, violates equal protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and says it has limited the numbers of non-Asian minority students at UC's most selective campuses. The suit also criticizes the university system for relying too heavily on high school grades and test scores in admissions, saying that the practice discriminates against students from schools without strong honors classes and counseling.

"Proposition 209 has created a racial caste system in which the state's most prestigious schools train mostly white students and students from some Asian backgrounds," said the suit, which names Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and UC President Mark G. Yudof as defendants. It is expected to be filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco and is being brought on behalf of California students by the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary, known as BAMN.

In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Proposition 209, despite an appeal that government should use racial preferences to make up for past bias.

George Washington, a Detroit-based attorney for the group, said the legal environment has changed enough in recent years that his case can succeed. He cited the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in a case involving the University of Michigan's law school, which allowed colleges to consider race as a factor in admissions as long as they do not use quotas.

UC spokesman Steve Montiel said the university cannot ignore Proposition 209. "If this [suit] opens up another discussion, that's well and good, but as long as Proposition 209 is the law, we're obliged to follow it," he said.

Within those limits, UC is doing as much as it can through financial aid and other efforts "to ensure the widest possible access," he said.

Contra Costa Times / Oakland Tribune

Students sue to restore affirmative action at UC
By Josh Richman
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 02/16/2010 03:32:23 PM PST
Updated: 02/17/2010 06:50:40 AM PST

Students represented by a civil-rights group filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday to overturn California's ban on affirmative action in public university admissions.

The complaint, filed in San Francisco, argues that Proposition 209 violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause by turning certain students away from the University of California's most selective campuses.

"Proposition 209 has created a racial caste system in which the state's most prestigious schools train mostly white students and students from some Asian backgrounds while admitting Latina/o, black and Native American students at only a third of their presence among the high school graduates of the state," the lawsuit argues. "As demonstrated by the UC's own figures, the proportion of Latina/o, black and Native American students is falling further and further behind the proportion of those students among high-school graduates."

The suit says the small proportion of those minority groups at UC Berkeley "is matched only at the flagship universities of the Deep South states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina." The suit's plaintiffs are the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Immigrant Rights and Integration and to Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary, or BAMN — a group founded in 1995 in response to Prop. 209 — and several dozen minority students. The defendants are Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the UC Board of Regents and UC President Mark Yudof.

Nearly 55 percent of voters in November 1996 approved Prop. 209, amending the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity; the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge in 1997. The new suit calls the constitutional amendment "an imposition of power by an electorate that was still in its majority white in a state where the population was rapidly changing" despite "the overwhelming opposition of the Latina/o, black, Native American and Asian voters."

UC spokesman Steve Montiel had no comment on the suit's merits. "If this opens up another discussion, that's well and good, but, as long as Proposition 209 is the law, we're obliged to follow it," he said, adding that UC strives to help underrepresented minority students meet admission requirements, compete for admission and have the widest possible access.