wsj.com Opinion | Racial Thunder Out of California
The Editorial Board
Photo: Rishi Deka/Zuma Press
Democracy can be surprising, and on Tuesday voters in California killed an effort to reintroduce race-based preferences in state education, hiring and contracts. This rejection of identity politics in one of America’s bluest and most diverse states should echo around America, not least at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Californians voted down Proposition 16, a ballot measure that would have repealed this provision in the Golden State constitution: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”
Even more astounding, and though it could change as the last votes are counted, the 56.1% to 43.9% margin of victory for keeping the non-discrimination language in the state constitution is larger than the 54.5% to 45.5% when voters added it in 1996. The support for keeping that ban has to shock progressives: A Berkeley IGS Poll before the vote found a third of African-American saying No to Prop 16.
The proposition was supported by almost the entire California political and business establishment; it sailed through a legislature distracted by Covid-19; it gathered steam as a response to racial injustice following the death of George Floyd in the hands of Minneapolis police; and the Yes side raised more than $20 million to the No side’s $1.7 million. As if this weren’t enough, the No on 16 movement was falsely accused of pushing white supremacy.
Still it failed. And as welcome as it will be for Californians to keep their state officially colorblind, it may also help with two big cases about the use of race in college admissions that could end up at the Supreme Court. These cases involve the use of race at Harvard and Yale in a way that discriminates against more qualified applicants—especially Asian-Americans.
The fictional Mr. Dooley said the Supreme Court follows the election returns. In his 2007 plurality opinion in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, Chief Justice John Roberts made clear his position that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
But the Chief is also leery of major Court decisions that are 5-4. The addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett now opens the possibility of a 6-3 majority. The clear rejection of racial preferences in California ought to give the Justices even more encouragement to have the courage of their convictions when the Harvard or Yale case arrives at the Court. Maybe America’s future isn’t balkanization by racial and ethnic identity after all.
|
