Archive for Pacific Legal Foundation
Although California’s constitution bars the government from discriminating against or granting preferences to individuals or groups on the basis of race in government employment, education, or contracting, proponents of race-based policies still resist obeying the law.
Last October, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who swore to uphold the constitution, signed into law a bill that directs state departments to award government contracts to the lowest responsible bidder subcontracting 15 percent of the work to minority-owned businesses and five percent to female-owned businesses. The contractor who fails to do so will be rejected, even if he’s the lowest bidder.
The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) filed suit against the state, alleging that the law violated Article I, Section 31. Ward Connerly, who led the Prop. 209 campaign, was named as a plaintiff. Good news from PLF:
“The tentative ruling (DOC) by the court agreed with all of PLF’s arguments. The Court said that the state could not survive by refusing to enforce statutes that were facially unconstitutional. Furthermore, the Court noted that several of the statutes that we were challenging were not covered by the Court of Appeal’s decision, so there was no possible way that the state could refuse to enforce them, and there was no possible way they could be read in a constitutional way. The Court also rejected the State’s argument that the uncodified section of the Bill indicated the State’s unwillingness to enforce the statutes. The Court noted that such language ‘cannot be used to create a meaning that cannot be found in the unambiguous statutory language itself.’”
Incredibly, the state agreed the quota bill was unconstitutional. The language in the state constitution is plain, but it seems preferences proponents are hoping California voters develop amnesia.
Filed under: Pacific Legal Foundation, Quotas, Ward Connerly | |Comments off
Earlier this year I blogged about the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigration Rights By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) filing a lawsuit challenging Proposition 209, approved by 54 percent of California voters in 1996. The law bars the state from granting preferences to or discriminating against individuals or groups based on race in government employment, contracting, and education.
BAMN contends, in so many words, that certain racial minorities have a constitutional right to preferential treatment. Among other things, BAMN said Prop. 209 “promised a ‘color-blind’ Constitution. But this was and is a lie…”
The law’s purpose was to create colorblind government policy, not to guarantee equality of outcome. Defying common sense, BAMN compared Prop. 209 to Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which held that states were permitted to enact laws that separated the races, as long as segregated facilities were “equal.” Plessy permitted racial discrimination. In contrast, Prop. 209 bars the government from such actions.
But why quibble?
The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLE) has issued a call to defend Prop. 209. PLE seeks to intervene in the federal lawsuit.
“Committed supporters with historical ties to Prop. 209 need to be part of this lawsuit,” said PLF lead attorney Sharon Browne. “They must be allowed to intervene because the voters who passed Prop. 209 deserve to be represented, and Prop. 209’s guarantee of equal rights and equal opportunities must be defended credibly and to the max.”
PLE notes that named defendant Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed a government contracting racial quota bill last year, has moved to be dismissed from the suit.
“The governor and the regents are trying to backpedal out of defending Prop. 209,” Browne said. “And Attorney General Jerry Brown has already tried to sabotage Prop. 209 by sending a brief to the state Supreme Court calling it unconstitutional.”
The American Civil Rights Institute’s (ACRI) Ward Connerly added: “Every individual in this country – including every student and every university applicant – deserves a full measure of equal treatment, not categorization by race or sex. This is the mandate of Prop. 209, and 14 years after its enactment it is time to move forward and fully embrace that goal.”
(Photo: ACRI’s Jennifer Gratz of Gratz v. Bollinger hounded by BAMN protesters)
Filed under: Judiciary, Pacific Legal Foundation, Ward Connerly | |Comments off
Today, California’s highest court will hear arguments in Construction v. City Of San Francisco, a case in which two contractors challenged San Francisco’s preferential treatment ordinance.
Although California state law bars the government from granting preferences to and discriminating against individuals or groups based on skin color in hiring, contracting, and admissions, San Francisco mandates race-based and sex-based preferential treatment in contracting.
Last year, the court asked Jerry Brown, California’s attorney general, to comment on the case. He said, in essence, that California’s law barring preferential treatment is unconstitutional. Specifically, he contended that Proposition 209 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which declares that no state “shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Brown’s response is based on judge-made law. The U.S. Supreme Court turned the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment on its head by finding a non-existent narrowly tailored/compelling interest doctrine among those simple, explicit words. Despite the straightforward mandate to not deny any person equal protection of laws, the court fashioned a levels-of-scrutiny method to deciding cases. As long as the race-based practice is “narrowly tailored” to serve a “compelling” government interest, racial discrimination is permissible.
The Pacific Legal Foundation’s Sharon Browne, one of the lawyers challenging the ordinance, wrote in a statement:
“Government discrimination based on race and sex is wrong. In California, it also happens to be unconstitutional, thanks to Proposition 209. Proposition 209 leaves no room for government programs that mandate race-conscious actions. Yet that is what San Francisco wants to do. San Francisco wants to be allowed to discriminate. That’s why we’re at the California Supreme Court – to ask that San Francisco (and all other governmental entities in California) be barred from playing favorites by race and sex, and be forced to obey the state Constitution and basic principles of fairness, equality, and justice.”
Will San Francisco prevail? Likely. Last year, the California Supreme Court ruled that the Berkeley school district had not violated the law barring the state from discrimination and preferential treatment based on race by assigning students based on race, because the district didn’t show “partiality, prejudice, or preference” in assigning students by race. In other words, Berkeley discriminates against everyone, so the practice is okay.
Filed under: Judiciary, Pacific Legal Foundation | |Comments off
The Pacific Legal Foundation’s Sharon Browne talked about the Voting Rights case presently before the U.S Supreme Court on a Federalist Society podcast.
Background: Decades ago, certain jurisdictions tried to keep blacks away from the polls. The infamous poll tax was one method. Over 40 years ago, Congress enacted a law (known as Section 5) that required states like Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana to seek Justice Department approval to change voting procedures (pre-clearance).
In 1975, Texas was added to the list of states covered by the provision. In 2006, the act was extended for the fourth time – for 25 years. A utility district in Texas that came into existence in 1986 challenged the law. Considering the racial progress made in the last four decades, particularly the election of black officials, the pre-clearance requirement is intrusive and based on out-of-date evidence, the plaintiff contends.
Browne explains why the court should strike down Section 5. You may download the MP3 or listen online at this page.
Filed under: Judiciary, Pacific Legal Foundation | |Comments off
In April, we blogged about the California Department of Transportation’s (Caltrans) new hiring plan that takes race into account in public contracting. The Federal Highway Administration approved the race-based plan on diversity grounds. Yesterday, the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLE) filed suit against Caltrans on behalf of a contractor.
The agency set aside 6.75 percent of federal contracts for women, blacks, people of Asian-Pacific descent, and American Indians. The American Civil Rights Institute’s Ward Connerly told the Sacramento Bee that the agency is “caving in to minority politics.”
State law bars the government from discriminating against or granting preferences to individuals or groups in hiring, contracting, and admissions based on factors like race and sex, but an exception exists if federal dollars are at stake and if actual discrimination is taking place. PLE’s Sharon Browne said, “We believe there is no evidence that Caltrans will lose federal dollars if they treat all contractors equally.”
Browne said Caltrans’s practice of “coding contractors by color” is “flat-out unconstitutional.” Three years ago, PLE sent Caltrans a letter demanding it stop discriminating against contractors based on race. The agency desisted but found a way around the law, using an exception in the law to claim federal funds would be lost if the agency stopped discriminating against contractors based on race.
It doesn’t make sense to us, either.
Filed under: Pacific Legal Foundation, Ward Connerly | |Comments off
Last week, the California Court of Appeals heard arguments about whether the Berkeley school district’s race-based pupil assignment plan is discriminatory. Yesterday the court ruled that Berkeley’s plan does not violate California’s ban on preferences. (Source)
The court contended that the policy “does not show partiality, prejudice or preference to any student on the basis of that student’s race.” The court’s reasoning is that all students in a residential area get the same treatment and therefore, the practice isn’t discriminatory. Will the state supreme court get the case? Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Alan Foutz says the American Civil Rights Foundation (ACRF), which filed the suit, probably will appeal.
Download the 19-page opinion in Word.
In October, 2006, ACRF sued the Berkeley Unified School District, claiming that if violated a state law that bars the government from discriminating against or preferring individuals in hiring, contracting, and admissions based on factors like race. The district had taken race into account when making assignments for attendance at certain elementary schools and for participation in certain academic programs at Berkeley High School. A judge ruled against ACRF, which asked the appeals court to review the case.
In 1996, 54 percent of California voters said YES on Proposition 209.
Stay tuned for more commentary about this decision.
Filed under: Diversity, Judiciary, Pacific Legal Foundation | |Comments off
Last week, the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) sent a cease and desist letter to the city of Omaha requesting that it repeal sections of its municipal code that give race- and sex-based preferences in the awarding of public contracts.
In response, city attorney Paul Kratz said Omaha suspended the contracting rules after the November election, and the city is drafting a new ordinance. (Source)
Under the city’s previous contracting compliance ordinance, businesses owned or operated by members of certain racial or ethnic groups were automatically designated “disadvantaged” and therefore subject to preferential treatment. Omaha allowed female- and minority-owned businesses to submit bids 30 days before other businesses and required 10 percent of the city’s contracting dollars to be awarded to such businesses.
Last November, 58 percent of Nebraska voters chose to bar their state from discriminating against or giving preferences in hiring, contracting, and admissions based on factors like race and sex. A group challenged the law in court earlier this year, but a judge upheld it.
Filed under: Initiative 424, NECRI, Pacific Legal Foundation | |Comments off
Last Friday, the state appeals court in California ruled that Los Angeles may continue assigning students to magnet schools based on race, despite a 1996 law banning race preferences in government hiring, contracting, and admissions. (Source)
Unbelievable.
Los Angeles, like other cities across the country, were under court orders to racially balance government schools. In 1981, a California judge issued a desegregation order that directed the district to use race when placing students in magnet schools in L.A., based on a discrimination case dating back to 1963. Apparently, the 27-year-old order was exempt from the law banning race preferences.
Pacific Legal Foundation’s Sharon Browne criticized the ruling. The court “has told the students of Los Angeles that your race means more in defining who you are than your individual merit.” American Civil Liberties Union’s Catherine Lhamon said the ruling “sends an important message to school districts around the state that the districts can continue with their desegregation efforts.”
Since white enrollment in L.A. magnet schools is as high as 40 percent (although they represent just nine percent of the district’s population), the powers that be have decided that a little racial bean-counting is in order to “balance” out the skin colors. Unfortunately, remnants of racial discrimination will remain under desegregation orders.
Here’s the problem: segregation is a problem when decreed and enforced by the government. Segregation that is voluntary (in fact, segregation may the wrong word to describe it), i.e., based on preferences of individuals, is not a problem. See the distinction?
Racial imbalance is not a bad thing per se, and in any case not bad enough to justify racial classifications.
Filed under: General, Pacific Legal Foundation | |1 Comment
That’s what the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) wants to know. PLF, a public interest group that fights for individual rights, filed a California Public Records Act request for UCLA to release relevant information about its undergraduate applications process.
Attorney Joshua Thompson said, “PLF has been contacted by a number of students, parents, and UC faculty who suspect that undergraduate admissions at UCLA are not race- and sex-neutral, as required by Proposition 209.”
In 1996, 54 percent of California voters chose to amend the constitution to bar state and local governments from discriminating against and granted preferences to anyone based on race and sex. UCLA is a state-supported institution.
PLF requests that UCLA release undergraduate applications, including essays (with personal identifying info redacted), identities of application readers, scores given, documents that show why they admitted or denied each applicant, and other relevant information.
Color me jaded, because I know UCLA is considering race and sex when assessing applications, in violation of the law. PLF is attempting obtain the proof. After Proposition 209 became law, UCLA adopted a policy called holistic review, a poor disguise for race preferences.
Filed under: Pacific Legal Foundation, UC | |Comments off
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