LOS ANGELES — Affirmative action is on the ballot this election with Proposition 16, which asks voters to decide whether race, gender, and ethnicity should be factors in public employment, public contracting, and public education.
If proposition 16 passes, it would reverse Proposition 209, which banned affirmative action in California in 1996.
Hamilton High School senior Mateenah Muhammad has been applying to colleges and has her eye on UC Davis. She has good grades and a scholarship from a company, but she worries about being admitted because she knows the percentage of Black students admitted to the UC system is low.
“We often go underrepresented and under looked when it comes to receiving admissions,” Muhammad said.
She’s in the Young Black Scholars program operated by 100 Black Men of Los Angeles. The program started back in 1983 after a report revealed many Black students were not being prepared for UC admissions.
100 Black Men President Jewett Walker has found that because affirmative action is not allowed in public school admissions, many Black students are at a disadvantage.
“It’s almost purely analytic. They look at your grade point average, they look at your SAT score, and if you don’t fit within a particular scale, then they don’t even go any further to look at your life story or to look at your personal statement that you submit,” Walker said.
The University of California freshmen admit rate of Black students has hovered around four percent over the last ten years, according to school data.
Opponents of Prop 16 believe considering race in admissions would lead to students being admitted who aren’t always qualified.
“The way politics and race intersect are that you have this dynamic of pressure being placed on administrators to have the right complexion of the entering classes,” said UCLA law professor and economist Richard Sander. “Administrators often use these simple racial preferences to achieve that but they don’t hold themselves accountable for the results of that.”
Yet supporters of Prop 16 say many qualified students are at under resourced schools. Predominately Black and Latino schools in Los Angeles tend to not have as many advanced placement courses as other schools.
“The typical UC student, particularly at the more competitive campuses like UCLA and Berkeley, have GPAs well over 4.0 and the only way you can do that is by taking AP courses where you get five points instead of four for every course you take. And if you go to a school and you can be a straight A student in a Black community and have no shot at getting into UCLA if you just look at the numbers, which is unfair,” said UCLA professor Darnell Hunt. “You might be good enough but you’re disadvantaged based on the accident of birth where you live and the playing field is not level.”
A level playing field is what Muhammad wants as her application is being considered.
“We need to be recognized for our great applications and our accomplishments,” she said.
There is overwhelming Democratic support in favor of Prop 16, and strong opposition from many Republicans. Gov. Gavin Newsom supports Prop 16. State Senator Ling Ling Chang opposes Prop 16.