YES ON 16: TIME TO REVIVE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

It is hard to think of an initiative that fits the moment better than Proposition 16.

Placed on the ballot by the Legislature, it would repeal Proposition 209, a 1996 ballot measure that banned affirmative action to help disadvantaged groups in policies governing public education, employment and contracting. This is a program whose time has come — again. George Floyd’s killing in

Minneapolis on May 25 again illustrated how Black men are often mistreated and sometimes die at the hands of police officers. The COVID-19 pandemic has again exposed numerous disproportionate systemic problems, from education to health care, for people of color. And the recession that followed again underscored the massive family income gap between White Americans and most people of color.

In the United States in 2020, the problem starts at the top with President Donald Trump’s explicit racial demagoguery — calling Haiti and nations in

Africa “shithole” countries, and telling White suburbanites he would block housing programs that would bring people of color to their communities.

In 1968, when Republican presidential candidate

Richard Nixon ran on “law and order,” an aide eventually admitted that was code for keeping down “the antiwar left and Black people.” America has made some progress against racial discrimination since then. Yet somehow we have entered a heavily polarized era in which mutual loathing is so intense that

Trump believes — correctly — this his backers will stick with him even when he skips the code and openly says bigoted things Nixon would have never said 52 years ago. This is unfathomable.

So if California joined the 42 other states allowing communities of color to have preferences in college admissions, government hiring and the awarding of contracts — where women- and minority-owned businesses are generally on shakier ground financially and struggle to compete — that would be constructive and positive. That is especially so given that the Golden State leads the nation in the percentage of impoverished families, with an extreme concentration among Latinos and Blacks.

Bear in mind, this is not a mandate. It eliminates a ban, allowing governments to act responsibly to address college admissions inequities, to hire people from teachers to police officers that better ref lect their communities and to better ensure equal opportunity contracts. And it does so directly while acknowledging that considering race to address discrimination is not the same thing as considering race to discriminate. As one supporter told us, “To solve a problem, you have to confront a problem.”

But there are two concerns about Proposition 16 that any honest debate cannot exclude.

The first is that there is an equally if not more direct way for state lawmakers to work on one of the primary drivers of structural inequality in California: a K-12 education system that isn’t doing enough to prepare all students for modern life. National

Assessment of Educational Progress test scores show Republican-controlled states like Florida and

Texas do a better job than California educating children of color while efforts by liberal states like

Massachusetts and New Jersey that persuaded teacher unions to accept fundamental reforms have led to student gains among communities of color.

The second is that when it comes to college admissions, it’s Asian Americans whose members are admitted to the University of California at rates far above their percentage of the state population and the K-12 student body. The Asian American Pacific

Islander community is divided on Proposition 16’s impact on AAPI students, the way communities can disagree on complex issues. Some offer enthusiastic support and say it would also help poorer Asian

Americans and that some lower enrollment numbers should be accepted for the greater good. Others find it troubling that a child of Asian refugees might not be able to get into UC because of a policy meant to respond to systemic White racism.

Proposition 16 is needed. Now. But if it passes,

The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board hopes that all the lawmakers — and all the voters — who supported it monitor its impact on Asian

American students — and heed the same arguments for its adoption when considering education reform. We recommend a yes vote on Proposition 16.