Featured Photo source.
On 24th June the repeal of Proposition 209 passed the two-thirds majority required in the State’s Senate (the upper chamber of its legislature) and will now go on to the Public in a statewide referendum in the November elections to adopt the state’s constitutional amendment.
Proposition 209 prevents discrimination against or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group based on race, sex, colour, ethnicity, or national origin within public employment, public education or public contracting.
This Proposition was actually originally brought into the constitution in 1996 as an attempt to improve equalities for minorities and women, so it is very interesting now to see that this is being repealed as many Democrats believe it has done the reverse.
The reason this has been done is actually an attempt to improve and further affirmative action policies that give defined minority groups equal access to that of the majority population in things such as educational studies for example, more of a certain minority that is deemed disadvantaged or discriminated against would be more likely granted a place at a university.
Such policies have been a controversial stick for a long time between those who say it is giving too much preferential treatment to a certain group while disenfranchising others who would have got in due to working to meet the requirements through regular means, for example many have complained it singles out Asian-American’s from getting a spot in a University as affirmative action policies can give their spot away to another defined minority group, while others say it brings further equality between those who are and are not privileged and so on.
Obviously though such policies do go against things such as a constitutional proposition that prevents such specified treatment of any such group. So, I understand why the repeal of Proposition 209 has been sought, it is strangely an attempt to actually increase equality. At the same time though I do believe it comes with a host of dangers as it can also be used to work against any such group depending on what administration comes in charge in the future, this repeal if adopted could easily backfire at some point.
Either this will work and legislation will serve to increase equality or equalities will be further eroded. When thinking about this it does seem a bit scary to what way this could possibly go in the future without having equality safeguards on the public sector within the state’s constitution. We also have to consider if this could also be challenged by the Judicial Branch, if possibly it comes into conflict with anything within the federal constitution which would then make such an amendment unconstitutional.
We also have to understand that the whole proposition is being repealed, so not only for prohibition of preferential treatment to or discrimination against minorities but also for those of different sex as well in the public sector, which could possibly give room for policies to increase gender equality in the public sector workplaces, but at the same time these changes can give room to work against that, so I hope that while this is being repealed the lawmakers do have safeguards in mind for laws that seek to prevent those that wish to abuse this repeal and in turn work against equalities, because I can’t stress enough that this could easily go either way.
We live in interesting times. It is important to keep a close eye on this experiment of sorts to make sure that it remains fair for all and doesn’t actually lead to erosion of rights. It would be interesting to hear what others think on this, if you have any thoughts feel free to comment!
Thank you for reading this post, if you have any queries please Email me, you can find my Email in the Contacts & Community section. Please also follow The Weekly Rambler on Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest and Facebook which you can access through the buttons at the bottom of this website. You can also use the social media buttons under each blogpost to share with your family, friends and associates. You can also subscribe to Email notifications at the right-side of this website to know whenever a new post goes up (you can easily unsubscribe from this at any time through a button in each Email notification), or alternatively you can use an RSS Feed Reader. Please also join my FB Group The Weekly Ramblers Readers Group where readers can more easily talk with each other and also with me whenever I am on, you can also find it in Community.