Monday, January 26, 1998
Berkeley law students propose changes to Prop. 209
EQUAL November ballot initiative restricted to college
admissions
By Barbara Ortutay
Daily Bruin Contributor
A group of UC Berkeley law students have begun a campaign to
battle the perceived impact of Proposition 209 on equal access to
public education by filing a ballot proposal titled the Equal
Educational Opportunity Initiative.
Representatives from the group, called Students for Educational
Opportunity (SEO), are visiting campuses across the state, not only
to campaign, but hopefully to establish groups who can work to get
the initiative on the November 1998 ballot.
"The secret to having this work is to spread it out, to get
students to promote it and run with it. It really comes down to
people power," said Berkeley law student Adam Murray.
Over 20 UCLA students attended an information session last
Wednesday, and many expressed further interest in the campaign.
"I am planning to be involved. The Coalition of Law Students did
a lot of work on Prop 209, and we are hoping to influence them
again," said second-year student Monica Casares.
In order to have the initiative on November’s ballot, almost
800,000 signatures need to be collected from registered voters by
April. SEO has calculated how many signatures each college needs to
collect in order to meet this goal according to college size,
setting, and history of student activism. UCLA’s goal is 150,000
signatures.
The ballot proposal’s text states, "in order to provide equal
opportunity, promote diversity, and combat discrimination in public
education, the state may consider economic background, race, sex,
ethnicity, and national origin of qualified individuals."
"The initiative is not a full repeal of Prop 209. It only talks
about education, while 209 is much broader," Murray said.
"More people tend to be squirmy about affirmative action in
hiring; there is a 10 percent difference in national opinion polls
between education and hiring," he continued. "As students, we will
be listened to when we talk about education."
If passed, the initiative would remove the ban on considering
race, sex and ethnicity when deciding which students to admit. It
would not, however, require schools to use affirmative action.
By trying to place the initiative on the November ballot,
campaigners hope that voters will be influenced by the expected
media coverage of Prop. 209’s effect on the entering freshman
class.
"Numbers will change for the worse: it is predicted that, due to
the abolition of affirmative action, there will be a considerable
decline in the number of minority students attending college,"
Murray said.
In fact, SEO was established as a result of student concern
about the decline of racial minorities at the Berkeley law school.
In 1997, only one African American student was admitted to a class
of over 250, as compared to over 20 last year. At UC Irvine and UC
San Diego medical schools, there were no African American students
at all this year.
These figures are expected to project onto undergraduate
admittance as well, with minority attendance declining as much as
50 to 70 percent, according to SEO.
Whether the initiative is placed on the ballot or not is largely
dependent on student involvement and organization across
California.
"I see this as an opportunity for students to say that they care
about the future of public education and who has access to it,"
said Murray.
He also added that this would show that, despite recent findings
about freshman apathy, there are students who care about what goes
on around them.
SEO will hold another meeting about the initiative on Thursday,
Jan. 29 in Kerckhoff 400 at 7 p.m.