HERE WE GO AGAIN: Almost 24 years ago, Californians voted to adopt Proposition 209, which amended the California Constitution to include the following prohibition: “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.” (Full disclosure: I proudly co-chaired that campaign and spent a good deal of my time and money getting it adopted.)

Voters in several other states followed suit with Proposition 209 clones.

In the early years, Prop. 209 did a lot of good on campuses (as I discuss here). In more recent years, California state universities have learned how to get around it, but it still does some good in other areas, especially public contracting.

There have been many efforts to repeal it. And … well … here comes another one. There is just no end to it. I hope that, like last year’s efforts to repeal Washington State’s version of Prop. 209, this one is doomed to failure. But it will likely take organization and effort to ensure that it is.

Meanwhile, if you are hiding out from the coronavirus at home, now is the time to sit down and read my essay on the problem of “mismatch.”  Alas, that problem is at the root of a lot of what is wrong on on college campuses today.  Instead of trying to repeal Prop. 209, we ought to be enforcing it more vigorously.