Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, by state Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, was just introduced in the Legislature. It would allow the University of California and California State University again to use race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin as a consideration for accepting students into the schools.

It effectively would repeal Proposition 209, an initiative California voters passed in 1996. The official Prop. 209 ballot summary read by voters said:

“Prohibits the state, local governments, districts, public universities, colleges, and schools, and other government instrumentalities from discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to any individual or group in public employment, public education, or public contracting on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.”

So far, laws and initiatives similar to Prop. 209 have been passed in seven other states.

But Hernandez believe Prop. 209 has stifled diversity in CA higher education.

“Enrollment decreases [of Latinos and African Americans in state universities] have become steeper and are not keeping pace with the changing populations,” Hernandez said Thursday in the Senate. “It was a mistake in 1996 and we are still suffering consequences of that today. SCA 5 will simply allow California’s public universities to compete for students with the best and brightest backgrounds, so we can keep our academic excellence here in our state, and not in some other state.”

Connerly

“I hope Sen. Hernandez and members of the Latino Caucus really take a leadership role and explain [SCA 5] to their constituents,” said Ward Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute. He is the author of Prop. 209 and has helped pass similar initiatives in Michigan and other states.

Connerly said the motive behind SCA 5 and previous bills is to try to get more Latinos into UC schools. “The Latino Caucus is dominant in the Legislature,” he said. “The [university] admissions people will have to do what they want.”

Indeed, the discussion on the state Senate largely involved members of the Latino Caucus.

Hernandez said that, in 1995, prior to Prop. 209’s enactment, 38 percent of California high school graduates were minorities, while 21 percent of freshmen in the UC system were minorities. By 2004, minorities accounted for 45 percent of high school graduates, but just 18 percent of freshmen in the UC system.

“A blanket prohibition on consideration of race was a mistake in 1996, and we are still suffering the consequences from that initiative today,” Hernandez said. “You cannot address inequality by refusing to acknowledge it.”

Of particular issue with lawmakers is the dominance of Asian students in UC and CSU schools.

Currently, UC freshmen are 36 percent Asian, 28.1 percent white, 27.6 percent Latino and 4.2 percent African American.

Yet California’s population is 13.9 Asian, 39.4 percent “White alone, not Hispanic or Latino,” 38.2 percent Latino, and 6.6 percent African American, according to the U.S. Census.

Hernandez and legislators representing minorities want the state’s college admissions to reflect the population more closely.

“We need to do a better job ensuring our students of color feel welcome at our public universities and colleges,” said Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens. “And that students represent our changing population.”

“Prop. 209 created a barrier for people of color to access higher education,” said Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego. “We didn’t apply the rule to include high schools. Yet with these prohibitions, we have seen a stark reduction to access of higher education by people of color, only leading to a sense of hopelessness within this community, creating a high condition of inequality in our society.”

K-12 problems

“Our problem is K-12,” charged Sen. Mark Wyland, R-Escondido. “There is already data before Prop. 209 that many of those students admitted experience failures, and it changed their lives because they failed,” Wyland added. “We can solve the problem we’re after if we can get K-12 and the Community College system prepared. We’ll have a lot better outcome.”

Prop. 209’s defenders also point out that the state’s Latino and African American children especially are shortchanged by a state school system that regularly scores near the bottom of the 50 states on national tests. This is shown on federal statistics for the National Assessment of Educational Progress on mathematics achievement, a crucial component of success at the university level. It found:

“In 2013, Black students had an average score that was 33 points lower than White students. This performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1990 (38 points). 

„”In 2013, Hispanic students had an average score that was 28 points lower than White students. This performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1990 (34 points).”

Numerous K-12 reforms in public schools over 23 years at the federal, state and local levels have done nothing to close the performance gap. Prop. 209’s defenders insist that more rigorous reforms — such as school vouchers — are needed to advance the performance of Latino and African American children. In California, the teachers’ unions vigorously have opposed vouchers in two referendums that voters defeated.

Initiative

If SCA 5 passes, it could be put before voters this November, essentially making it a referendum on Prop. 209. SCA 5 next will be heard the Assembly.

In 2011 Hernandez authored the controversial Senate Bill 185, which was also an attempt to repeal Prop. 209. SB185 passed both legislative houses but was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown, who said he agreed with the goals of affirmative action but that it was up to the courts, not the Legislature, to limit Prop. 209.

In both 2000 and 2010, the California Supreme Court ruled that Prop. 209 was constitutional.

Supreme Court

At the federal level, the U.S. Supreme Court has handed down several decisions that have not definitively determined the constitutionality of affirmative action. A new case expected to be decided this year is described by NPR:

“The U.S. Supreme Court takes up the issue of affirmative action again … but this time the question is not whether race may be considered as a factor in college admissions. Instead, this case tests whether voters can ban affirmative action programs through a referendum.

“In 2003, the high court upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action policy. The next day, opponents of affirmative action launched a referendum campaign to bar such programs, and in 2006, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative amending the state constitution to ban affirmative action programs in higher education.

“Michigan’s state colleges and universities promptly abandoned any use of race or ethnicity to promote diversity, and minority enrollment plummeted. In 2012, a federal appeals court ruled that the referendum itself was discriminatory, and the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to decide the issue.”

The case has obvious implications for Prop. 209 and explains why Gov. Brown, also a former California attorney general, based his veto on waiting for the courts to decide the matter.

The case is expected to be decided by June. Oral discussions by the court last October seemed to indicate that it would uphold the state bans on affirmative action. But the court can be unpredictable.

“The Big Reveal on Cal’s holistic admissions process created much fuss, most of it on behalf of Asians who are clearly the victims of discriminatory behavior.

“I’m fussed, too. But most people don’t completely understand how this ‘problem’ came about, and why the UC and other universities are discriminating against Asians. It’s not so much ‘affirmative action for whites’ as it is unintended consequences of being forbidden to use affirmative action for blacks and Hispanics.”

‘Immigrant Asians … kill whites on grades’

How did this play out? UC chose to …

“… de-emphasize those evil, racist tests that traditionally represent, in the typical progressive’s mind, a means of reinforcing the institutionalized hegemony of the white man’s values. Grades, in contrast, reflected the school’s values, the school’s priorities. So majority URM schools, both charters and inner city, can put whatever grades they like on classes that can be called whatever they want. UC officials made the change, along with Eligibility in the Local Context, so that majority URM schools could lie about their students’ academic abilities properly reflect the students’ diligence and abilities in subjects simply not valued by the institutional racists at the College Board.

“The problem is, alas, that UC admissions made changes to their policy based on the ‘demographic footprint’ of tests, but they forgot about the demographic footprint of grades.

“Namely: Asians, particularly recent immigrant Asians, kill whites on grades. The test score advantage is getting (suspiciously) worse, but the grade advantage is huge.

“That wasn’t part of the plan. Look, universities know the game as well as anyone: grades are a fraud. That’s why, until relatively recently, all universities weighted test scores as high or higher than grades.

“If high school grades were objectively accurate, why does the University of California have an entry level writing requirement?—and why is that writing requirement either a test or a college level course? (And I have my own doubts of college level courses, but more on that later.) … If high school grades meant anything, schools could just accept students with high grades and hey, presto. Problem solved.”

‘Any outrage is counterbalanced by another’

This is just a powerful, devastating analysis of the racial games that UC officials play. But it doesn’t lead to the tidy conclusion one might expect about UC admissions.

“You know what would have been much easier? Require four Subject tests: English Lit, Math 2c, American History, and a Science. Asians would still do well, but it would have been harder. Dump the SAT, dump or devalue grades. If nothing else, we’d be giving smart kids of all races a chance to show their stuff purely through test scores, imperfect as they may be, rather than the vagaries of teacher assessment.

“But that gets UC right back to the problem it started with, the reason it emphasized GPA over test scores in the first place, the problem that it created just to give them a cover story for ignoring the will of the California voters (and, eventually, the constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court). A test-score only admissions process would eliminate almost all blacks and Hispanics from consideration. The problem: every attempt to bring in more blacks and Hispanics leads to more Asians.

“Problem? Why is it a problem? Shouldn’t the universities just let the chips fall where they may? If the schools are overwhelmingly Asian, so what?

“Well, for starters, relying exclusively on grades leads to Kashawn Campbell at the low end—hell, Kashawn’s story singlehandedly reveals the need for test scores, the fraudulence of high school grades, and the sketchy nature of college grades in one neat little package.

“But more importantly, a huge number of the Asians admitted are either nationals or first and second generation Chinese, Koreans, and Indians.

“None of what I’ve written or will write is intended in any way to rationalize the discrimination against Asians. Quite the contrary. Any fair admissions process would lead to overrepresentation of Asians. But I hope to persuade readers that college admissions in its current form, in both private and public schools, is so corrupt that getting outraged about discrimination for or against any one demographic is pointless. Any outrage you find is counterbalanced by another, and no, it’s not as if it all works out.”

What a vivid account of how race works at UC, Prop 209 or no Prop 209, and of how college administrators think.

I encourage people to check out the Education Realist blog regularly.

Out of a potential pool of more than 300 candidates, Department of Homeland Security Secretary and former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano was unanimously nominated to fill in the shoes of retiring UC President Mark Yudof. The UC Board of Regents will vote Thursday on her appointment. If approved, Napolitano will be the 20th president of the UC system and first woman to lead in its 145-year history.

UC Regent Sherry Lansing chaired a 10-member special search committee, by which Napolitano was recommended in a unanimous vote. In a statement, Lancing called Napolitano “a distinguished and dedicated public servant who has earned trust at the highest, most critical levels of our country’s government. She has proven herself to be a dynamic, hard-working and transformative leader.”

California Community Colleges Chancellor Brice W. Harris issued a statement echoing similar sentiments of praise:

“The nomination of Secretary Napolitano to become the next president of the University of California is a truly inspired choice worthy of this great system of higher education. Her focus on education as governor of Arizona and the skills and leadership she has demonstrated as Homeland Security secretary make her uniquely qualified to lead the University of California.”

Even Gov. Jerry Brown said Napolitano had “strength of character and an outsider’s mind that will well serve the students and faculty” and that it would be “exciting to work with her.” Which is rather interesting, considering he criticized the trend of hiring out-of-state presidents in 2011, and wanted UC and CSU officials to specifically seek out Californians.

Napolitano’s lack of academic experience

Contrast that with the reaction of former state senator and education reformer Gloria Romero, who said she was “stunned” upon hearing the news. Romero told me the nomination was a “political placement” and “not wise for the UC system.” The University of California system, she said, is a “premiere institute of research scholarship and faculty.”

“I admire her for what she’s done,” Romero said of Napolitano. “She was a governor and did oversee the University of Arizona system, but this is the UC system.”

Romero questioned Napolitano’s credentials and said the UC president should be someone that would be qualified to oversee “the collaboration and development of curriculum, the training and appreciation for research, and equipping the next generation of scholars.”

She pointed to Charles Reed, the former chancellor of the California State University system, whose tenure, she said, was “always very contentious” because of his minimal ability to “understand or appreciate the role of faculty in the development of curriculum.”

When I asked former UC Regent Ward Connerly of the American Civil Liberties Institute if he thought Secretary Napolitano was qualified to oversee the UC system, he simply said, “Doubtful.”

“There is no evidence that she has any academic experience,” he said of Napolitano. “Faculty often insist on someone that has academic experience.”

Indeed, Napolitano’s credentials fall far short of current UC President Mark Yudof and those before him.

Yudof came to the UC system after being chancellor of the University of Texas system from 2002 to 2008. Before that, he was president of the four-campus University of Minnesota system during 1997-2008. He was also a faculty member and administrator at the University of Texas at Austin for 26 years and dean of its law school from 1984 to 1994, as well as the university’s executive vice president and provost from 1994 to 1997.

Robert C. Dynes, the UC president before Yudof, was a professor of physics at the UC Berkeley during his tenure from 2003 to 2008. He was also the chancellor for UC San Diego from 1996 to 2003, and had been a part of the UC system since 1990.

Former UC President Richard C. Atkinson served before Dynes from 1995 to 2003 and had been chancellor of UC San Diego for 15 years. He was also the former director of the National Science Foundation, past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, former chair of the Association of American Universities, and a long-term member of the faculty at Stanford University.

These picks were all clear-cut academics. But the closest that Secretary Napolitano comes to these UC presidents is that she has a law degree. She has no research under her belt, no experience overseeing any academic systems, never taught a college class and isn’t even a native of California, even though proponents of Napolitano’s nomination say that, as governor of Arizona, she was focused “extensively on education.”

Playing politics with UC nomination

What we’re actually seeing, said Ward Connerly, is a “revolving door with academia and Democrat institutions.”

“If you go back and look at the Clinton era, for example,” he told me, “a number of academics were appointed in the second term of Clinton’s administration to prominent university positions.”

And it’s no secret the UC regents and faculty have been very supportive of Obama and his academic policies.

In fact, UC Regent Sherry Lansing, former CEO of Paramount Pictures and head of the search for the incoming UC president, had donated $1,000 to Barack Obama as early as 2004. She’s given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democrat Party, its candidates and its PACs.

The nomination looks like a win-win for the Obama administration, as Napolitano, who has become entrenched in scandals on sexual discrimination, immigration enforcement, the Boston bombings and downplaying terrorism, steps down from her post in the Department of Homeland Security. Additionally, Politico notes, her resignation gives Obama “major leeway” to pick a new DHS secretary without needing any Republican support, if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid follows through with his threat to go ‘nuclear’ and change filibuster rules.

It makes you wonder, asked Gloria Romero, “What is she doing? Who called whom? Who negotiated what and how did they place her? With these scandals brewing, it just doesn’t make sense.”

Ward Connerly told me it was “hard to say if faculty would oppose” such a nomination, or if the academic senate would respect her at all. “UC needs someone adept at bringing outside financial support,” he said. “While we seem to have turned a corner on the economy, UC is not out of the woods yet.”

The special session to vote on Secretary Napolitano’s nomination occurs Thursday, July 18, at 1:45 pm.

(Katie Hillery contributed research to this article.)

By Josephine Djuhana

A resolution that seeks to amend the California Constitution and undo the work of Proposition 209 for institutions of higher education is making its way through Sacramento and will likely be placed on the ballot in 2014.

SCA 5, authored by Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, proposes “an amendment to the Constitution of the State, by amending Section 31 of Article I thereof, relating to public education.” Recently re-referred to the Senate Committee on Elections and Constitutional Amendments after passing the Committee on Education, the resolution specifically exempts public education institutions of higher learning from the requirements of Proposition 209.

In other words, SCA 5 allows schools to use race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin as a consideration for accepting students or hiring employees. Using such criteria currently is banned by Prop. 209, which voters passed in 1996.

Janet Chin, a media spokesperson for Sen. Hernandez’s office in West Covina, told me the resolution would take steps to “ensure that universities reflect the diversity of the state.” She said long-term benefits would include creating equal opportunity for all Californians by having a “well-trained, diverse workforce” that is needed to compete in the global economy.

“Campuses have become less diverse” since Prop. 209 passed, Chin said. “Qualified individuals have been looked over.” Since Prop. 209, she said, minorities have been “underrepresented” in universities, and SCA 5 seeks to correct this error by securing the best and brightest students.

Prop. 209 and measures of merit

Ward Connerly, founder and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, told me Chin’s reasoning was “nonsense.” He sponsored Prop. 209.

“If they want the best and brightest, they will use merit,” Connerly said of university admissions processes. “They have the right to do that right now, free of any race consideration or discrimination.”

Connerly, a former University of California regent, highlighted higher education in the Golden State, starting with the UC system — in his words, “a very prized system” — which regularly secures the top 12.5 percent of students from California high schools. He also pointed to 23 campuses in the Cal State system, many of which, he said, were “equally as good as some UC campuses”; and to our community college system, with more than 100 college campuses across the state. “It defies logic,” he said to me, “for anyone to say that anyone in California doesn’t have a chance to get an education.”

“We’re a pluralistic society in California, probably the most on the planet,” he said. “We have to learn to treat everybody equally and not allow anybody to have any preference from any public institutions. It’s a mistake to now flirt with changing that and empowering public institutions to discriminate.”

Prop. 209, said Connerly, was the product of a very contentious battle in the state back in 1996. The ballot measure explicitly denied public institutions, including state and local governments, as well as universities, colleges and schools, the ability to discriminate against or give “preferential treatment to any individual or group in public employment, public education, or public contracting on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.”

The results of Prop. 209 were robust. In fact, minority graduation rates actually increased after Prop. 209 was implemented. The measure “led to a more efficient sorting of minority students” according to research by Duke University:

“To address the robustness of the positive effects on graduation and the role of matching, we analyze unique data for all applicants and enrollees within the University of California (UC) system before and after Prop 209. The positive Prop 209 effects on minority graduation rates persist, even after controlling for observed and unobserved qualifications of UC enrollees. We present evidence that certain institutions are better at graduating more-prepared students while other institutions are better at graduating less prepared students and that these matching effects are particularly important for the bottom tail of the qualification distribution.”

The research also clearly demonstrated that students admitted with lower qualifications than their peers ended up learning less and had a drop out rate disproportionately higher than science majors.

“Sen. Hernandez is behind the times,” said Connerly. “It’s not forward-looking for him to inflict on the people of California another meaningless battle.”

Striving for diversity doesn’t solve the problem

Heather Mac Donald, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told me the UC system has “already been violating the spirit of Prop. 209 by importing obvious surrogates for race into its so-called ‘holistic’ admissions process.” The Hernandez bill, she said, would simply “open the floodgates of blatant racial references once again and allow UC to discriminate without apology.”

“There are high quality students that are not getting into these schools because there is already an informal quota,” she said.

The Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin case brought national attention to similar issues. The Supreme Court recently decided in a 7-1 ruling that the federal appeals court was wrong to dismiss Abigail Noel Fisher’s case, in which she argued that the University of Texas illegally discriminated against her because of her race.

The ruling written by Justice Anthony Kennedy essentially stated that diversity must not be an ultimately deciding factor in university admissions processes. “The reviewing court must ultimately be satisfied that no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity,” Kennedy wrote.

“Attaining diversity for its own sake is a nonstarter,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurring opinion. “The pursuit of diversity as an end is nothing more than impermissible ‘racial balancing.’”

The San Francisco-based Asian American Legal Foundation, in their amicus brief filing for the Fisher case, underscored the problems with having such racial quotas. Asians, they write, have “historically been, and continue to be, denied access to public schools due to overt racial and ethnic prejudice as well as ostensibly well-intentioned ‘diversity’ programs such as the program at issue here.” The brief went on to explain:

“UT Austin is engaged in racial balancing without any remedial purpose. It is similarly denying applicants access solely because they are of the ‘wrong’ race or ethnicity. And it is proclaiming that its good faith should excuse the fact that it is trammeling on applicants’ civil rights.”

The same is essentially happening in California’s higher education system behind closed doors.

In regards to admissions, Ward Connelly echoed the majority opinion of the Supreme Court and said officers must “use neutral measures first” and “exhaust all avenues of race neutrality” before considering employing policies of racial preferences.

But exempting universities, colleges and schools from the requirements of Prop. 209 would do exactly the opposite.

Connerly and other critics insist that SCA 5 would create the framework for an even broader scope of racial discrimination against qualified students, regardless of their achievements or merit.

By John Seiler

One of my oldest sources in California is Ward Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute. He sponsored Proposition 209, the 2006 initiative that banned government discrimination based on race, sex and ethnicity.

Friends and Foes of Liberty just put up a new audio interview with him. Click here.

By Katy Grimes

Despite the anti-affirmative action wave that has washed over America, affirmative action policies are thriving in government. Most people say they believe that no one in America should receive preference in education, jobs or government contracts because of their skin color or gender.

But that is exactly what is happening, and it occurs right under our noses.

California’s Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has a plan in the works to require major California insurers to submit an annual report to him outlining how they plan to implement stepped-up efforts to increase procurement from women and minority business enterprises.

In order to guarantee that this plan becomes a state mandate, the Assembly Insurance Committee is pushing a bill to change the state Insurance Code, and make this diversity policy the law of the land.

It’s a form of cheating.

CA Insurance diversity task force

Jones ordered in January that an Insurance Diversity Task Force be created “to consider and make recommendations about diversity in the insurance industry, including the diversity of corporate governing boards and procurement from diverse businesses.”

“Insurance is a $125 billion industry in California,” said Jones in a news release. “I am hopeful this task force will help us identify, measure and increase what the insurance industry procures from California’s minority- and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses.”

I attended a meeting of the Diversity Task Force this week, and was startled to observe the depth of affirmative action policies in government, as well as the arrogance of state government in dictating terms to private sector businesses.

In January, Jones requested “voluntary supplier diversity data” from California’s top 200 insurance companies. But apparently that’s not enough.

The Assembly Insurance Committee Chairman, Assemblyman Jose Solorio, D-Santa Ana, clearly working in tandem with Jones, authored AB 53, which would require the insurance companies to report their diversity policies and plans to Insurance Commissioner Jones.

Using Soviet-style policy, this state agency is forcing private sector businesses to report who they are doing business with.

The next step undoubtedly will be the penalty phase for businesses which do not meet the state’s diversity criteria.

The task force meeting was held at the stunning offices of the Department of Insurance, located in Sacramento’s most prestigious downtown business address, 300 Capitol Mall.

 The meeting was attended by the task force members, a few insurance industry people, CA Department of Insurance employees, and me.

This appears to be a shakedown of the big insurance industry, and an attempt to push certain minority-owned businesses to the head of the line in supplier and procurement deals, violating the most fundamental concepts of supply and demand economics, and the free market.

“Expanding small businesses – especially diverse and disabled veteran-owned businesses – will help turn our economy around,” added Commissioner Jones.

On its website, the California Department of Insurance states, “The CDI ensures that consumers are protected; that the insurance marketplace is fostered to be vibrant and stable; that the regulatory process is maintained as open and equitable; and that the law is enforced fairly and impartially.”

While I am confident that the mission statement has been altered and updated over the years, the state insurance department seems to be manipulating the insurance market, as well as the state’s economy, and interfering with the ability of private business to operate in California.

Affirmative action policies

Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including “race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin” into consideration in areas of employment, education, and business, usually justified as countering the effects of a history of discrimination. Proponents claim that minority groups are underrepresented in education and employment.

Many people believe that President Barack Obama was elected largely because Americans thought he would lead the nation to a an era of post-racialism. But after he took office, the post-racial president signed Executive Order 13583 “to promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce.”

However, it is ironic, because there are few institutions in America more ‘diverse’ and ‘inclusive’ than the government, and especially the federal government. The federal government reports a workforce of 17 percent black, while blacks are roughly 13 percent of the U.S. population.

Foes of Affirmative Action

Affirmative action foe Ward Connerly, and founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, helped lead the successful campaign for Proposition 209 in California. In a 54 percent to 45 percent vote, voters passed the law to eliminate affirmative action in public education, hiring and contracts in 1996. But California officials and lawmakers have ignored Prop 209, and instead continue to implement and use affirmative action policies throughout the education system, and all levels of government agencies.

“A policy that could be justified at its start, affirmative action has now become yesterday’s solution to yesterday’s problem,” Connerly said. “Yet it endures as if nothing has happened in the past 50 years.”

There isn’t a government agency that does not include an affirmative-action office or “diversity” department in its structure.

In addition to the president’s executive order, the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law included Section 342, promoted by Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), which Connerly said should be called the “White Male Exclusion Act.”

“It establishes in all federal financial regulatory agencies an “Office of Minority and Women Inclusion” with responsibility for “diversity in management, employment and business activities,” Connerly explained in an op ed for the Wall Street Journal.

Task force Diversity Summit

The Insurance department task force is planning a ‘Diversity Summit’ in October, with the goal of demonstrating “the importance of governing board diversity” within insurance companies, explained task force chairwoman Melinda Guzman, head of a certified Woman and Hispanic-owned law firm. Guzman said at the task force meeting that while she knows that her clients hire her for results, she is able to demonstrate the other benefits she offers as a woman and Hispanic law firm owner, to her clients.

However, she did not specify what those benefits are.  It must be something of a secret handshake in a private club; if you don’t know what the benefits are, you have no right asking.

Usually these alleged “benefits” involve access to government contracts, and insider information, which in a system already wrought with corruption and manipulation, will only make it worse.

The summit will be held in Los Angeles, and will present five panels covering “the changing demographics of California, California’s vision for diversity, the best practices from insurers successfully promoting diversity, challenges faced by diverse suppliers, and the importance of insurance company governing board diversity.”

Participants on the panels have not been confirmed, but invitees include Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, Assemblyman Warren Furutani, D-Long Beach, Assemblyman Ricardo Lara, D-East Los Angeles, Senator Curren Price, D-Los Angeles, and former Democratic Assemblywoman Gwen Moore.

Mandating diversity policies with AB 53

Asking for voluntary support from the private sector must not be enough for the government. Because the private sector is operates in a market economy based on supply and demand, this insurance department demand becomes problematic as government controls overshadow business operations.

A completely free market is a form of a market economy where buyers and sellers are allowed to transact freely based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies or regulation. However, we will always have taxes and regulation, and subsidies are rapidly increasing under the Obama administration, and the Gov. Jerry Brown government in California.

California has turned into the opposite of a free market ideal: Government regulated pricing, distribution, and production, limitations on commerce, and the ability to raise capital has even been hindered. While free markets are always hindered by government regulation and taxation, it is important to note that Communist governments pay lip service to the idea that each member of society will contribute as to their abilities, and receive goods and services as to their needs. It sounds good to people who want to hear this.

This is exactly what happened at the task force meeting. Lip service was paid to the private sector insurance businesses, which are so heavily regulated, they are held hostage by the Insurance Commissioner and state of California.

Several large insurance representatives attended the task force meeting to announce that they no longer oppose AB 53, but they don’t support it either. Insurance is neutral to AB 53, and that’s as good as it is going to get. And it apparently is as strong of a statement as insurance is willing to make in a state hostile to big business.

But that won’t stop the state’s Democratic politicians from pushing to require major California insurers to submit an annual report to the Insurance Commissioner regarding the implementation of their efforts to increase procurement from women, minority, and disabled veteran business enterprises.

Failure to file the report, by July 1, 2013, subjects the admitted insurer to civil penalties to be fixed by the commissioner.

This is a shakedown.

The Greenlining Institute, the lead proponent of the bill, states that the success of the PUC’s  supplier diversity program depends on consistent reporting requirements, goal setting, hearings, and strong regulatory leadership. Greenlining recommends this framework for the  insurance industry.

The Association of California Life and Health Insurance Companies and the American Council of Life Insurers oppose AB 53 and state in the bill analysis that this bill concerns them because “it would give the Insurance Commissioner the authority to develop and require outreach programs, thus limiting or disrupting individual company efforts to do what is best for the insurance business, communities and policyholders.”

Affirmative Action policies strangle business

“The longer we allow preferences to endure in the guise of diversity, the more damage will be done to the nation,” Connerly said.

The color-blind vision of John F. Kennedy, should have endured, but has been chipped away by liberals pushing affirmative action policies. Kennedy said that “race has no place in American life or law.”

Martin Luther King Jr. said that he dreamed of the day when the color of his children’s skin would be subordinate to the content of their character.

But not in California.

Task force members

Members of the task force include:

Melinda Guzman, attorney and task force chairwoman, General Counsel to the CA Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco.

Scott Syphax, the President and CEO of The Nehemiah Companies. Syphax also leads the development team of Sacramento’s Township 9, heavily taxpayer-subsidized for-profit development in downtown near the rail yard, a 3,000 unit master-planned community. Syphax is also a director of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco along with Guzman.

John Casas is President and majority owner of JT2 Integrated Resources, the nation’s largest Hispanic-owned third party administrator, and also a member of the CA Hispanic chamber of Commerce with Guzman.

Cecil Autry is an Associate Vice President and Regional Counsel for the Nationwide Insurance Group.

David A. Castillo is President and CEO for The Gray Casualty & Surety Company, a national surety providing support to standard and specialty markets. He oversees Gray’s national expansion and has been instrumental in creating bond programs for the City & County of San Francisco and the City of Oakland. Castillo is recognized as the first Hispanic President & CEO of a surety company.

Sam Kang is the general counsel for the Greenlining Institute, a national policy, organizing and leadership institute working for racial and economic justice. CalWatchdog published an investigation series of the Greenlining Institute, often called a cousin of ACORN, but instead found that it is the leading self-appointed national policeman for diversity in bank lending practices, corporate hiring and public utility contracts.

Phyllis Marshall is an attorney with Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, and lobbied the California Legislature, as well as Executive Branch agencies and other government offices and commissions.

Robert H. Mulz is the founder and current owner of Video Electronics in San Diego, and Chairman of The Elite SDVOB Network, a nonprofit national organization of service disabled veteran owned businesses.

Michael G. Keeley is the President of MGK Risk and Insurance, a certified minority business enterprise.

By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO–If you thought that affirmative action was dead in California, think again. In fact, California Democrats behave as if it was never outlawed, and continue to pass laws mandating racial preferences.

The Assembly passed a bill Thursday which would require school districts to dumb down the successful Gifted And Talented Education program in public schools, in order to allow “children of color” into the program.

Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Los Angeles, the author of this bill, said Thursday that “children of color” are not fairly represented in GATE programs across the state.

Blumenfield and supporters must assume that “children of color” are not capable of testing into the GATE program, and need the assistance of another affirmative action program.

But the GATE program is a meritocratic program, in which students participate entirely on the basis of merit, rather than by birth or privilege, or because of skin color or socioeconomic status. There are obviously many children of all races and genders in the GATE program.

The GATE program identifies student participation in the areas of “intellectual, creative, specific academic, or leadership ability; high achievement; performing and visual arts talent.” And GATE is open to all students who attend public school. No one is keeping them out, other than the deteriorating public education system and union teachers, who incessantly whine about the poor quality of the kids they have to teach, and the lousy parents.

“GATE programs are operated in approximately 800 school districts located in all 58 counties,” the bill analysis states. “There are over 480,000 public school students that have been identified as gifted and talented in the state.”

According to Blumenfield,  AB 2491 is needed because, “[I]t is crucial that we provide an appropriate education for gifted children living in disadvantaged situations. While many parents can afford to provide extracurricular enrichment for their gifted children, low-income parents lack the resources to provide these opportunities.”

Blumenfield provided a chart for the bill analysis which supposedly illustrates a suspicious gap of demographic differences between the general student population in California and the student population identified for GATE. “The chart shows an over-identification of White, Asian and  Filipino students and an under-identification of Hispanic and African American students in the GATE program state-wide,” the analysis states.

(Source: California Department of Education 2010-11 Data)

However, Proposition 209, passed in 1996 by the voters of California, amended the California Constitution to prohibit public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, sex or ethnicity.

“The people behind the bill don’t want to have to raise the performance of kids, and instead, want to do the easy thing of reducing requirements,” said Lance Izumi, director of education at the Pacific Research Institute, CalWatchDog.com’s parent think tank. “And the reason they don’t want to do the heavy lifting is because the successful methods go against liberal orthodoxy–more choice for parents, and more individualized delivery of education.”

GATE Program

The stated purpose of the Gifted and Talented Education program is to “develop unique education opportunities for high-achieving and underachieving pupils in California public elementary and secondary schools who have been identified as gifted and talented.”

And the GATE program states, “Special efforts are made to ensure that pupils from economically disadvantaged and varying cultural backgrounds are provided with full participation in these unique opportunities.”

So why the need for the bill?

Blumenfield said that English learners may not receive recognition of high intelligence or talent. Perhaps he is correct, but reading, writing and speaking English are crucial to learning all other subjects in California schools.

AB 2491 specifically mentions the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Blumenfield, who represents Los Angeles, has obvious ties to the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has a large concentration of low-income and minority students.  And Blumenfield received very large contributions from the teachers unions and other public employee unions. LAUSD is a failing school district, and demonstrative of Izumi’s analysis of a school district which doesn’t want to have to raise the performance of the children, and instead, would rather lower the educational requirements in order to appear as if they are performing better.

“If affirmative action really worked, then why is the highest ranked school in all of California the American Indian Public Charter School in downtown Oakland?” Izumi asked. “It is made up of nearly all minority students. They didn’t need affirmative action.”

The American Indian Public Charter School serves 200 inner-city students in fifth through eighth grade, and has an average API of 988.

“The goal of this bill is to encourage better integration of those students who are not in the GATE program but would otherwise qualify,” the bill analysis states. But that statement is highly unlikely according to Ward Connerly, author of Proposition 209 and president of the American Civil Rights Institute.

Connerly said that the bill’s rationale is flawed because of the academic gap between black and Latino students, and Asian and white students. Connerly says that if you take away affirmative action, you take away the ability of schools to discriminate, and schools want to be able to to perpetuate the damaging discriminatory stereotype which presumes black and Latino students cannot compete with Asian and white students. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy for liberals.

Connerly also said that Blumenfield’s bill is inappropriate as the U.S. Supreme Court will decide this fall the landmark affirmative action case, Fisher vs. University of Texas at Austin. The case asks the court to decide whether affirmative action in the university admissions process is a measurement toward increasing the diversity of the student body, or if it violates the civil and constitutional rights of applicants, when schools consider race and ethnicity in university admissions.

The outcome of this case will have deep implications on all school affirmative action policies.

(student photos from the American Indian Public Charter School.)

Katy Grimes:

Proposition 209, a constitutional amendment that prohibits the government from granting educational or employment preferences to individuals based on race, was surprisingly upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Monday. The 9th Circuit had already issued a previous opinion in the 1990s upholding the voter-approved law.

But this decision appears to make have disappointed much of the media.

“Civil rights groups and aspiring minority college students have lost the latest bid to get the University of California to resume considering race in its admissions decisions,” the Los Angeles Times wrote.

“Affirmative action proponents took a hit Monday as a federal appeals court panel upheld California’s ban on using race, ethnicity and gender in admitting students to public colleges and universities,” wrote the Sacramento Bee.

“The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding so-called Proposition 209 comes as affirmative action resurfaces as a live issue at the top of the U.S. legal system,” Reuters reported.

Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Ralph Kasarda, argued in favor of the ban and upholding the law, and described the case as “redundant and baseless.”

“The bottom line from both decisions by the 9th Circuit – today’s and the ruling 15 years ago – is that California voters have every right to prohibit government from color-coding people and playing favorites based on individuals’ sex or skin color,” Kasarda said in a statement.

The case is now headed to the United States Supreme Court, which agreed to hear an appeal by a white female student applicant who was denied undergraduate admission in 2008 to the University of Texas at Austin.

There is plenty of precedence in this case. After the City of San Francisco continued giving  women and minorities an advantage in bidding for city contracts even after Prop 209 was voted into law, the Pacific Legal Foundation sued saying that the practice violated Proposition 209. In a 6-1 ruling in August 2010, the California Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 209 does not violate the federal constitution.

 Last year, in blatant violation of Proposition 209, the California Legislature passed SB 185, to require state colleges and universities to use race in admissions policies. Despite taking an oath to uphold the state’s constitution, the bill’s constitutionality appeared irrelevant to state legislators.

American Civil Rights Institute founder Ward Connerly, co-author of Prop 209, said that SB 185 was a “priority of the legislative Latino caucus. And the Latino caucus is the 800-pound elephant in the room,” having passed several educational preference bills this year.

Connerly said that SB 185 was shoved through the Legislature quickly, even after two previous attempts to pass nearly identical bills were vetoed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Despite Schwarzenegger’s veto messages that the bills were unconstitutional, Connerly said that Democrats figured that if they could get the bill to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk quickly, he would sign it. But he didn’t – Brown vetoed the bill, knowing that it couldn’t be upheld if legally challenged.

“Signing this bill is unlikely to impact how Proposition 209 is ultimately interpreted by the courts; it will just encourage the 209 advocates to file more costly and confusing lawsuits,” Brown wrote in the veto message.

The law is so inconvenient when it doesn’t fit the liberal agenda.