Measure on affirmative action not to be on Calif. ballot

California voters will not be able to vote this year on a measure that would have allowed state universities to consider race in admissions decisions.

The voter measure, Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, would have overturned part of California’s voter-approved ban on affirmative action by allowing universities to increase racial diversity by considering a college applicant’s race.

But on Monday, the measure’s author, Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), and Speaker of the Assembly John Pérez (D-Los Angeles) said the measure will no longer be considered for the 2014 November ballot, as Hernandez requested to collect public feedback about the amendment first.

“In order to have an honest and thoughtful conversation about recruitment, admission and retention of minority communities in our system of higher education, the author has asked that SCA 5 be sent back to the Senate Desk,” Perez and Hernandez said in a joint statement released Monday.

On March 11, three state senators, including Congressional candidate Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), urged Perez to hold SCA 5 from this year’s ballot because they heard concerns from members of the Asian and Pacific Islander community that the measure might prevent their children from attending their choice colleges. They asked Hernandez to hold SCA 5 until legislators meet with members of the community, the three senators said in a letter they wrote to Perez.

Asian students made up the largest racial group of UCLA undergraduates at 34.8 percent in fall 2013. About 4 percent of UCLA undergraduates were black and 18 percent were Hispanic.

In recent months, many students have argued for the reinstatement of affirmative action at the University of California because they believe it will increase the number of students from underrepresented groups on campus, in particular, the small number of black students.

However, some students said they think holding SCA 5 for fear it might increase the number of certain groups on campus at the expense of Asian Americans is a misunderstanding.

Kamilah Moore, chair of the Afrikan Student Union at UCLA and a fourth-year political science student, said that just because affirmative action might admit more black or Latino students, doesn’t mean it would decrease the number of Asian and Pacific Islander students admitted. She said she knows many members of the Asian and Pacific Islander community who are in support of SCA 5.

“It’s not about pitting races against the other,” Moore said. “It’s about equal opportunity.”

Nicole Ngaosi, academic affairs coordinator for the Asian Pacific Coalition and a fourth-year Asian American studies student, said she thinks people tend to picture East Asians as the face of the Asian and Pacific Islander community, but in doing so they isolate or forget other members of the community, in particular Southeast Asians.

She said many Southeast Asian students face retention and access issues in completing college because they often come from families who recently immigrated to the U.S. and struggle with English as a second language, and thus have lower socioeconomic statuses.

“I think that it’s unfortunate that members of the Asian and Pacific Islander community view affirmative action to be harmful,” Ngaosi said. “I think that’s completely false. Affirmative action does help our community and our society as a whole.”

Thu-huong Nguyen-Vo, a Southeast Asian and Asian American studies professor, said research has shown that rates of enrollment and advancement through college differ among different Asian groups. She said Asian enrollment rates have not increased that much since affirmative action was banned in California and that she’s not concerned SCA 5 would be detrimental to Asian students, partly because the measure does not require anything of universities, but just allows them to use affirmative action if they choose.

The University of California itself has repeatedly expressed support in the past for affirmative action, saying its numbers of black students and other underrepresented groups decreased significantly after California voters passed Proposition 209 in 1996, which forbade the use of affirmative action in state university admissions and public workforce hiring.

However, UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein said the University has not taken a stance on SCA 5 because it was still in the process of examining the legislation. Klein added the measure had a long way before reaching the November ballot and it would’ve been up to the UC Board of Regents to decide whether to support it or not.

Maryssa Hall, Undergraduate Students Association Council external vice president and a strong advocate of SCA 5, and Moore said they understand that legislators desire to alleviate concerns in the Asian and Pacific Islander community.

But Hall said she is still unhappy the measure won’t be on the ballot this year. She said she thinks the legislators’ move means there needs to be more education about SCA 5.

“I think ‘disappointed’ would be an understatement,” Hall said. “This is an extremely important issue that people aren’t going to give up that easily.”

David Guo, a second-year economics student and co-president of Young Americans for Liberty at UCLA, an organization which believes affirmative action is a form of discrimination, said he thinks SCA 5’s failure to make it to this year’s ballot is beneficial for students. He said he thinks Asian students have already historically had to meet higher academic standards to get admitted to college.

He added that he thinks colleges should emphasize a student’s experiences rather than his or her race in admissions.

“Affirmative action itself is not a very promising solution to this problem of diversity,” Guo said. “It divides more than unites Californians.”

Perez and Hernandez said they will convene a special commission to discuss SCA 5 with students, faculty, administration, parents and community leaders before bringing it back to the ballot. The next statewide election will take place in November 2016.