Thursday, October 30, 1997
Initial effects of Proposition 209 examined
OPPORTUNITY: Discrimination complaints rise as funds for
investigations down
By Scot Sargeant
Daily Bruin Contributor
There is a disparity between discrimination complaints and
actions to resolve them, a UCLA study found.
The California Policy Seminar, a University of California think
tank, examined the impact of affirmative action programs in
California. They revealed that funding for investigation of
gender-based and racial discrimination has declined. In comparison,
there was an enormous increase in complaints of racial
discrimination.
This study is the first to examine the effects of affirmative
action programs on public sector employment in California before
the passage of Proposition 209, which banned the use of affirmative
action in hiring, university admissions and contracting by state
and local government.
"What we have seen over the past few years is not just efforts
to stop the use of affirmative action but a real decline in our
commitment to ensure a discrimination-free workplace," said Paul
Ong, UCLA professor of urban planning and social welfare and
director of the study’s national team of scholars.
"We are certainly at a pivotal point in the affirmative action
debate," Ong said. "Ironically, California, whose first
anti-discrimination policies, adopted in 1934, predated federal
policies by almost a decade, is at the forefront again."
This time, however, California is at the forefront because of
the number of discrimination complaints.
The central question one must ask now is about how ending
affirmative action will impact California.
Ong and his colleagues said that it is one question they cannot
answer. "At best, any answers would involve much speculation," Ong
said.
"While it is tempting to say that Proposition 209 would
eliminate the gains made over the past several decades, societal
attitudes and private employment practices may mitigate those
effects," the think tank’s study says.
"In the absence of strict enforcement of nondiscrimination
policies, however, it is very likely that further progress … will
be slow," the study continued. "Discrimination is still a serious
problem."
Strict enforcement of employment policies is lacking because of
a long decline in fiscal support for the California Fair Employment
Practices Commission (FEPC), the agency in charge of investigating
discrimination complaints.
The study found that from 1980-1981 to 1992-1993, funding for
the commission fell 33 percent, after adjusting for inflation. At
the same time, the number of complaints rose substantially, to a
279 percent increase in race-based cases, and a 280 percent
increase in gender-based complaints.
This study also found that affirmative action has increased
employment and business opportunities for minorities and women in
California, primarily by offering increased positions in the public
sector. Minority and women-owned businesses also saw increased
hiring through public contracting.
Those most likely to be affected by the elimination of
affirmative action are California’s largest and most successful
minority-owned firms. This is because they tend to be more
dependent on revenue from sales to the government than smaller
firms.
Depending on the ability of the private labor market to absorb
displaced public-sector workers, eliminating affirmative action
programs could result in lower wages for women and people of color,
the study said. Another possible result could be underemployment
for some female and minority managers and professionals, the study
said.
"Most Californians acknowledge the need to fight discriminatory
practices and to ensure ‘real’ equal opportunity. Unfortunately,
achieving this goal will not be easy, given the recent history of
reduced state support for enforcement of anti-discrimination laws,"
Ong said.