Listen to the Regents Endorse Removing State Ban on Affirmative Action

We alerted readers on Sunday that there would be a special meeting of the UC Regents on Monday to deal with the affirmative action issue.* Yours truly suspects that few people were aware of the quickly-scheduled meeting in advance since there was no news media coverage about it at the time of our alert. So you read it here first.

Before getting into substance, we again point out that the Regents delete the official recordings of their meetings after one year for no apparent reason, but we archive them indefinitely. Arguably, the action taken by the Regents yesterday has some historic interest. So why don't the Regents preserve their recording?

The background to the meeting yesterday is that the Regents in 1995, encouraged by then-Regent Ward Connerly and then-Governor Pete Wilson, passed resolutions banning affirmative action. A year later, a larger version of the ban which included all state agencies, not just UC, was approved by voters as Proposition 209. Proposition 209 can only be changed by another vote of the people. It cannot be changed directly by the legislature. The Regents cannot exempt UC from it.

However, the legislature - by a two thirds vote - can put on the ballot a proposition that would repeal 209. An attempt to do so in the past was blocked by an outcry by some Asian groups on the grounds that the effect would be fewer Asian students at UC. Recent national events revived the effort in the legislature and a proposition that would repeal 209 was passed in the state assembly. The state senate has yet to vote. It is likely to vote soon. If the state senate approves the proposal, it would go to voters in November 2020.

What the Regents did yesterday was to endorse putting a repeal on the ballot and also endorse the idea of a repeal, assuming it gets on the ballot. There was no dissent in the public comments nor by Regents. There was some concern expressed about acting before the state senate acted, apparently because of the idea that it was unseemly to presume a legislative action. The result was to split the proposal before the Board into two parts: endorsing putting the proposition on the ballot in November via Assembly Constitutional Amendment (ACA) 5, and then endorsing the idea of repeal of Prop 209 by voters. It was not clear why splitting the proposal into two parts resolved the concern about acting before the state senate since both parts were ultimately endorsed unanimously.

Note: Governor Newsom - an ex officio Regent - was NOT present.

You can hear the meeting at the link below:



or direct to:
https://archive.org/details/regents-special-mtg-6-15-20
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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2020/06/regents-meet-tomorrow-to-endorse-ending.html. A link to a video about the 1995 Regental action is included.