California’s colorblind laws are failing black students

By Marcus Anthony Hunter, especially for CalMatters

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California likes to think of itself as a laboratory for progress. But when it comes to racial equality in higher education, the experiment has failed.

Two stories have recently come out that show how twisted the state’s idea of ​​”justice” has become. Scholarship at UC San Diego — created to honor victims of Klan violence and to help black students — was forced open to white applicants after a legal challenge. Think about it. A program designed to remedy racial terror must now include descendants of those who were never its targets.

Then Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill that would allow public colleges give priority to descendants of enslaved people upon admission — a humble acknowledgment of history. Vetoed.

These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of the same disease: California’s anti-discrimination laws are now tools to perpetuate discrimination. It is a legal sentiment that has traveled from west to east.

of California Proposition 209 where it started. Adopted in 1996, it prohibits public institutions from taking race into account in education, employment and contracting. The idea was simple: treat everyone the same. The reality is anything but.

Black enrollment in the UC system dropped after Prop 209. At UCLA and Berkeley, black students remain drastically underrepresented even as California grows more diverse.

But the law did not stop at admission. Its “colorblind” logic metastasized, infecting scholarship, support programs, and outreach efforts.

Now we live with the consequences. The UCSD scholarship case and Newsom’s veto spring from the same trap: Prop 209 made race-centrism illegal, even when systemic racism is exactly what needs to be addressed. California has backed itself into a corner where medicine looks like privilege and repair looks like discrimination.

Let’s be clear – programs supporting black students were never intended to give anyone an unfair advantage. Rather, racial equality initiatives are about course correction. Centuries of exclusion—from schools, from property, from public life—required a legal apparatus, as did any solution designed to repair harm and damage.

When a scholarship designed to address racial violence is forced to be “inclusive,” the whole point disappears. When a bill recognizing the descendants of enslaved people is killed because of a threat of “neutrality,” the state is not neutral. This is actively perpetuating inequality.

Proposition 209 promised equal treatment. Instead, he gave legal cover to eliminate any attempt at compensation. Equality has become a club against justice.

These decisions have ramifications beyond symbolism. Black students lose funding. Admissions officers retreat from target range. “Justice” becomes code for inaction. And when all race-based medicine is removed, campuses become less representative, less vibrant, and less honest about the land they stand on.

A new definition of discrimination

The definition of discrimination is flipping before our eyes. It used to mean the permanent exclusion of a group of people; now it means helping the excluded. Scholarship for black students becomes discrimination. Two centuries of systematic exclusion are somehow not.

California has been at a major crossroads, swinging between anti-discriminatory and anti-black policies and practices. California must not stand here.

Even with Proposition 209, we have options. Intentional partnerships with private funding organizations to support targeted scholarships is one possibility, along with expanding outreach to black communities and schools. Another possibility is to use race-neutral proxies—such as neighborhood data, family wealth, school quality—to shape enrollment and aid.

Most importantly, we must tell the truth: you cannot write equality without justice, which means that equality without correction is not justice.

California has been a leader in innovation and inclusion. If we are to resume or retake this leadership role, we must acknowledge the obvious: even in blue states, the color-coded system still produces color-coded results. Downplaying differences only widens and entrenches racial disparities in wealth, health, education, access, safety, and happiness.

Real justice isn’t pretending race doesn’t exist. He sees clearly what the race has done – and chooses to repair the damage.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.