Legal experts told The Times last month the measure probably would have faced challenges in court if the governor signed it into law.
The law prohibits indirect methods of doing something that would be prohibited if you were to do it directly.” Race-based college admissions are banned by federal and state law.
Newsom on Monday also vetoed bills that would have assisted descendants of slaves for some state programs.
Newsom and state lawmakers passed a law to create a “first in the nation” task force to study and propose effective ways to help atone for the legacy of slavery.
Last week, Newsom signed Senate Bill 518, which will create an office called the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery.
Gov. Legislation that would have permitted public and private universities to grant preferential admission to candidates who are directly descended from people who were enslaved in the United States prior to 1900 was vetoed by Gavin Newsom on Monday.
The governor called on educational institutions to examine and decide “how, when, and if this type of preference can be adopted” and thanked the bill’s author for his dedication to resolving disparities. “.”.
“This bill clarifies, to the extent permitted by federal law, that California public and private postsecondary educational institutions may consider giving an applicant who is a descendant of slavery a preference in admissions,” Newsom wrote in his veto letter on Monday. It is unnecessary to pass this bill because these institutions already have the power to decide whether to offer admissions preferences like this one. “”.
Proponents argued that the legislation was different from affirmative action, which is prohibited at California colleges, because it would not have required applicants to be members of any specific race or ethnicity. However, detractors claimed that the word “slave” was a stand-in for race.
Legal professionals told The Times last month that if the governor had signed the bill into law, it most likely would have been challenged in court.
“Does this count as on the basis of race?” asked Ralph Richard Banks, a professor at Stanford Law School and the faculty director and founder of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice. A secondary question will be whether the law was actually adopted to circumvent the no-racial-classification rule, which forbids using indirect means to accomplish an action that would be illegal if done directly, even if it is not formally related to racial classification. “.”.
States and the federal government prohibit admissions to colleges based on race.
Nearly thirty years ago, California voters approved Proposition 209, which changed the state Constitution to forbid colleges from taking into account a student’s race, sex, national origin, or ethnicity when making admissions decisions. The U. S. The Supreme Court effectively abolished racial discrimination in college admissions across the country in 2023 when it decided in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that such policies are in violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Bills that would have provided assistance to slave descendants for certain state programs were also vetoed by Newsom on Monday. Those included a bill to set aside money from a state program that offers financial aid to first-time homebuyers and legislation requiring licensing boards within the Department of Consumer Affairs to expedite applications from descendants.
The 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer ignited a national dialogue on racial justice, and California became the first state government in the nation to examine reparations, attempts to address the legacy of slavery and systemic racism.
To help atone for the legacy of slavery, Newsom and state lawmakers passed a law establishing a “first in the nation” task force to research and suggest practical solutions. After years of work, the panel produced a 1,080-page report on the effects of slavery and the discriminatory practices that the government approved after slavery was abolished. The California Legislative Black Caucus used the report’s findings as the basis for a set of proposed laws.
The Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery will be established by Senate Bill 518, which Newsom signed last week. That bureau will develop a procedure to ascertain a person’s ancestry and validate their claim in order to grant them access to benefits.
Assembly Bill 7 was introduced by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles), who claimed that his bill would have addressed a “legacy of exclusion, of harm” by allowing colleges to give preference to the descendants of enslaved people. “”.
According to Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Andrew Quinio, who focuses on equality issues, AB 7 was obviously unconstitutional. The foundation is a conservative public interest legal practice that works to keep the government from going too far.
“This has a very clear racial intent and purpose and it will have a racial effect,” he said, adding that the bill was part of the Road to Repair package of bills from the California Legislative Black Caucus and was based on the recommendations of the Reparations Task Force. For a piece of legislation to be illegally based on race, it need not benefit all or even the majority of a demographic. “.”.
Civil rights lawyer Lisa Holder, president of the Equal Justice Society, a progressive nonprofit that defends diversity-promoting policies, contended that the measure’s wording made it very likely to pass legal challenges.
“This legislation is specifically designed to address the harms that we have witnessed, as well as the harms from the past that persist into the present,” she stated. “. This legislation is strong enough to create a compelling interest because it aims to undo those harms by concentrating exclusively on the descendant community. “.”.
Professor of law and education Gary Orfield, who co-founded UCLA’s Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, concurred that the legislation was well-crafted to withstand legal challenges. He emphasized that Tribal affiliation, which is regarded as a political classification, rather than race or ethnicity is the reason California permits university programs that assist Native American students.
Orfield stated that since many Native Americans were enslaved and the state Constitution of 1879 declared Asiatic coolieism, or Asian indentured servitude, a form of human slavery, applicants of different races might have benefited from the new admissions policy.
He asserted that “all slaves were not Black, and all Black people were not slaves.”. “I believe there is a valid concern when considering remediation for historical violations, and there is a strong argument to say that slavery isn’t defined solely by race and isn’t merely a stand-in for race. “”.
However, persuading the public was a different story, according to Orfield.
He remarked, “I don’t think everyone will understand this easily.”. “Americans have a tendency to believe that discrimination is not generational. But in my opinion, it does—I believe the impact has been long-lasting. “”.
