Despite a law that bars the state from discriminating against or granting preferences to individuals or groups in hiring, contracting, and admissions based on factors like race and sex, the California Department of Transportation has drawn up a hiring plan that takes race into account in public contracting. (Source)
The Federal Highway Administration approved the race-based plan, which seeks to “increase diversity.”
In 1996, 54 percent of California voters barred their state from favoring one race or sex over another. Groups have been trying to overturn and state entities have been defying the law since its inception.
The Pacific Legal Foundation‘s Sharon Browne told Businessweek that the state agency’s plan “seems to be an end-run around Prop. 209 and what we believe to be a violation of the federal Constitution that demands everybody be treated equally.”
Even though the law bars California from doing so, the transportation department wants to set a goal to issue 13.5 percent of all contracts to minority-owned businesses. When race doesn’t factor into the process, says transportation director Will Kempton, only two percent of contracts go to minorities.
Objectively speaking, why is that a bad thing? Perhaps the state should spend taxpayers’ money conducting a study to find out how and why that two percent is able to compete and win government contracts without relying on skin color. That’s a better use of tax dollars.
Will this race-based plan stand? California’s First District Court of Appeal has already shown its willingness to allow such practices. Last month, the court ruled that the Berkeley Unified School District’s student assignment plan, which takes race into account, does not violate California’s ban on racial preferences. The school district’s scheme “does not show partiality, prejudice, or preference to any student on the basis of that student’s race. All students in a given residential area are treated equally—regardless of the student’s individual race or other personal characteristics,” contended the court.
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