Dred Scott V. Sandford

" . . . We think they [people of African ancestry] are . . . not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. . . ." — Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, speaking for the majorityDred Scott was born a slave in Virginia around 1799. In 1830, Scott and his master moved to Missouri, which was a slave state. Four years later, a surgeon in the U.S. army named Dr. John Emerson bought Scott and moved him to the free state of Illinois. In 1836, Scott and Emerson moved to Fort Snelling, Wisconsin Territory. The Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery in this territory. That same year, Scott married a slave named Harriet. In 1838, the Emersons and the Scotts moved back to Missouri where the Scotts had two daughters. Emerson died in 1843 and left his possessions, including the Scotts, to his widow Irene. In 1846, Scott asked Mrs. Emerson if he could work for his freedom. According to Scott, she refused.

Scott sued Mrs. Emerson for "false imprisonment" and battery. Scott argued that he was being held illegally because he had become a free man as soon as he had lived in a free state. He claimed he was taken to a slave state against his will. Many slaves had sued their owners in this way and won their freedom in the past. In 1847, Emerson won in the Missouri Circuit court because Scott's lawyers failed to prove that she was holding Scott as a slave. Scott's lawyers successfully argued for a new trial.

By the time the new case went to trial in 1850, Emerson had moved to Massachusetts leaving her brother, John Sanford, in charge of Scott's case. The jury agreed that Scott and his family should be freed in accordance with the doctrine "once free, always free." The case was appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court in 1852, where two of the three judges found for Emerson and Sanford. William Scott wrote the decision of the court, stating that states have the power to refuse to enforce the laws of other states.

Sanford was legally recognized as Scott's owner in 1853. Sanford moved to New York leaving the Scotts in Missouri. Scott filed a new lawsuit in federal court (the other suits had been in state court). Federal courts settle disputes between citizens of different states.

In 1854, the U.S. Court for the District of Missouri heard the case. John Sanford argued in this federal lawsuit that Dred Scott could not sue because he was not a citizen. Judge Wells did not accept this argument, but he did instruct the jury to apply only the laws of Missouri in its decision. The jury found in favor of Sanford. Dred Scott then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Unfortunately for Scott, the political divisions over slavery worsened from the time his case first came to trial in 1847 through 1857, when the Court finally announced its decision. Events of this period that increased conflicts included the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), enactment of The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), violence in "bleeding Kansas" (1856), and Representative Brooks's battery of Senator Sumner in the U.S. Senate (1856). Like almost all people of their time, the justices had strong personal views about slavery. One justice, Peter V. Daniel of Virginia, supported slavery so much that he even refused to travel north of the Mason-Dixon line into a free state. Some historians believe that Chief Justice Taney hoped that his decision in the Dred Scott case

would help prevent, not create future disputes over slavery. The Supreme Court decided that Dred Scott was not a “citizen of the state” so they had no jurisdiction in the matter, but the majority opinion also stated that he was not a free man. The decision also declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820, legislation which restricted slavery in certain territories, unconstitutional.

While the decision was well-received by slaveholders in the South, many northerners were outraged. The decision greatly influenced the nomination of Abraham Lincoln to the Republican Party and his subsequent election, which in turn led to the South's secession from the Union.

Peter Blow's sons, childhood friends of Scott, had helped pay Scott's legal fees through the years. After the Supreme Court's decision, the former master's sons purchased Scott and his wife and set them free.

Dred Scott died nine months later.

http://www.streetlaw.org/en/landmark/cases

Plessy V. Ferguson

“The object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either." —Justice Henry Billings Brown, speaking for the majorityIn 1890, Louisiana passed a law called the Separate Car Act. This law said that railroad companies must provide separate but equal train cars for whites and blacks. Blacks had to sit with blacks and whites had to sit with whites. This is called segregation. Anyone who broke this law would have to pay $25 or go to jail for 20 days.

Two parties wanted to challenge the constitutionality of the Separate Car Act. A group of black citizens who raised money to overturn the law worked together with the East Louisiana Railroad Company, which sought to terminate the Act largely for monetary reasons. They chose a 30-year-old shoemaker named Homer Plessy, a citizen of the United States who was one-eighth black and a resident of the state of Louisiana. On June 7, 1892, Plessy purchased a first-class passage from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana and sat in the railroad car for "White" passengers. The railroad officials knew Plessy was coming and arrested him for violating the Separate Car Act. Well known advocate for black rights Albion Tourgee, a white lawyer, agreed to argue the case for free.

Plessy argued in court that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment banned slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the government treat people equally. John Howard Ferguson, the judge hearing the case, had stated in a previous court decision that the Separate Car Act was unconstitutional if applied to trains running outside of Louisiana. In this case, however, he declared that the law was constitutional for trains running within the state and found Plessy guilty.

Plessy appealed the case to the Louisiana State Supreme Court, which affirmed the decision that the Louisiana law was constitutional. Plessy then took his case, Plessy v. Ferguson, to the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the country. U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the previous decisions that racial segregation is constitutional under the separate but equal doctrine.

http://www.streetlaw.org/en/landmark/cases

Norris V. Alabama & Powell V. Alabama

During the 1930s, much of the world's attention was riveted on the "Scottsboro Boys," nine black youths falsely charged with raping two white women in Alabama. This case, more than any other event in the South during the 1930s, revealed the barbarous treatment of blacks. The case began on March 25, 1931, when a number of white and black youths were riding on a freight train, traveling to see if they could find work. A fight broke out between a group of black and white hobos, and the whites were thrown off the train. They reported the incident to a stationmaster, who wired ahead for officials to stop the train at a town called Paint Rock. Dozens of armed men rounded up nine black youths and took them to jail. They were about to be charged with assault when two white women, dressed in boys clothing, were discovered hiding on the train. Although there was no evidence connecting the youth to the women, the nine youths were charged with raping the women. The women -- who had had sexual relations with some of the white men thrown off the train and fearing prosecution for their sexual activity with the white men -- agreed to testify against the black youths. The trial was held in the town of Scottsboro, Alabama. The all-white jury convicted the nine, and all but the youngest, who was 12 years old, were sentenced to death.

The announcement of the verdict and sentences brought a roar of protest in the North. The Communist Party USA took charge of the case and carried out a two-fold battle -- in the courts and on the streets. In 1932 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions (Powell v. Alabama) on the grounds that the defendants had not received adequate legal counsel in a capital case. The state of Alabama then retried one of the accused, Haywood Patterson, and once again convicted him. But the trial judge, James Horton, set aside the verdict on the grounds that he did not believe the defendant committed the crime. That decision caused him to be defeated in the next election. The state then retried Clarence Norris to see if the Supreme Court would again intervene. Norris was sentenced to death, but in 1935 decision the U.S. Supreme Court (Norris v. Alabama) overturned this conviction, ruling that the state had excluded blacks from juries.

Alabama again tried and convicted Haywood Patterson, this time sentencing him to 75 years in prison. Further trials of the rest of the defendants resulted in more reconvictions and appeals until, after persistent pressure both Northern and Southern groups, Alabama freed the four youngest defendants (who had already served six years in jail) and later paroled all but Patterson. Patterson escaped in 1948 and fled to Michigan, where, three years later, he was convicted of manslaughter and died in prison. The last known surviving member of the group, Clarence Norris, fled to the North after his parole in 1946 and was granted a full pardon by the Governor of Alabama in 1976.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/scottsboro/peopleevents/index.html

Morgan V. VirginiaIn the spring of 1946, Irene Morgan, a black woman, boarded a bus in Virginia to go to Baltimore, Maryland. She was ordered to sit in the back of the bus, as Virginia state law required. She objected, saying that since the bus was an interstate bus, the Virginia law did not apply. Morgan was arrested and fined ten dollars. Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP took on the case. They argued that since an 1877 Supreme Court decision ruled that it was illegal for a state to forbid segregation, then it was likewise illegal for a state to require it. The United States Supreme Court agreed:

"As no state law can reach beyond its own border nor bar transportation of passengers across its boundaries, diverse seating requirements for the races in interstate journeys result. As there is no federal act dealing with the separation of races in interstate transportation, we must decide the validity of this Virginia statute on the challenge that it interferes with commerce, as a matter of balance between the exercise of the local police power and the need for national uniformity in the regulations for interstate travel. It seems clear to us that seating arrangements for the different races in interstate motor travel require a single, uniform rule to promote and protect national travel. Consequently, we hold the Virginia statute in controversy invalid."

The court did not rule that segregated transportation within the state was unconstitutional. The ruling, while another defeat for segregation in law, did not have an immediate impact. Buses still segregated its passengers until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s put an end to the practice once and for all.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_morgan.html

Sweat V. Painter

In Sweatt, perhaps the most famous of these cases, the Court ruled that officials at the University of Texas had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in denying admission to the law school to Heman Sweatt, an African American, because of his race. Rejecting the efforts of officials to provide a separate law school for African Americans as an acceptable alternative, the Court held that the University of Texas had to admit him to its law school. In light of the impact that Sweatt played in dismantling segregated higher education and beyond, this entry reviews its background and the Court’s analysis in ruling.

Facts of the CaseHeman Sweatt sought admission to the University of Texas Law School in 1946, but his application was rejected solely because of his race. Sweatt then sued in state court, seeking an injunction to require law school officials to admit him to study. At the time Sweatt filed suit, there was no law school in the state of Texas for African Americans. A trial court acknowledged that Texas violated Sweatt’s right to equal protection by denying him an opportunity to obtain a legal education while providing that opportunity to Whites. Even so, the court did not grant Sweatt the relief that he sought. Instead, the court continued Sweatt’s suit for six months to give the State of Texas time to establish a separate law school for African Americans. In 1947, the state legislature enacted legislation establishing the Texas State University “for the sole purpose of creating a separate but equal school of law for Negroes and to prevent Heman Sweatt’s admission to the University of Texas Law School” (Butler, 1997, p. 45). The law school admitted its first class of students that same year, and in 1950 graduated its first student, Henry Doyle. Doyle later became the first African American to be appointed to a state appellate court in Texas. When Sweatt refused to enroll in the newly created law school, a state trial court maintained that the school for African Americans offered him an opportunity for studying law that was substantially equivalent to the one provided to White students at the University of Texas Law School. Accordingly, the court denied Sweatt’s request for relief, and an appellate court affirmed in favor of the law school. After the Supreme Court of Texas refused Sweatt’s application for a writ of error in 1948, he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari. In response to Sweatt’s suit, the attorneys general for 11 Southern states filed amici curiae, literally, “friend of the court,” briefs supporting Texas’s position that it had no constitutional duty to admit the plaintiff to the University of Texas Law School.

The Supreme Court’s RulingIn a unanimous decision authored by Chief Justice Vinson, the Supreme Court reversed in favor of Sweatt, reasoning that the State of Texas had not provided him with opportunities to study law that were “substantially equal” to those afforded to White students who were eligible for admission to the University of Texas Law School. The Court ruled that on the basis of the size of the faculty, the array of courses, the opportunities for specialization in different areas of the law, the size of the student body, the scope of the library, and the availability of a scholarly law review and similar activities, the University of Texas Law School was superior to the newly established law school for African Americans. The Court added that the University of Texas Law School had a far greater degree of the qualities that were incapable of objective measurement but that made for greatness in a law school. According to the Court, the qualities that could not be measured included the reputation of the faculty, the experience of the administration, the position and influence of the school’s alumni, its standing in the community, its traditions, and its prestige. The Supreme Court elaborated on its rationale by pointing out that a law school cannot be effective if it operates in isolation from the individuals and institutions with which the law interacts. From the Court’s perspective, few students would have chosen to study law in an academic vacuum wherein they were removed from the interplay of ideas and the exchange of views with which the law is concerned. As the Court observed, the law school where the State of Texas was willing to allow Sweatt to study would have excluded racial groups that made up 85% of the state’s population and most of the lawyers, witnesses, jurors, judges, and other officials with whom Sweatt would inevitably have been dealing when he became a lawyer. In light of the substantial and significant segment of society that the actions of state and law school officials sought to exclude, the Court rejected the notion that the education they offered Sweatt was substantially equal to that which he would have received had he been admitted to the University of Texas Law School. Based on a finding of inequality in educational opportunities, the Supreme Court concluded that the Equal Protection Clause required the State of Texas to admit Heman Sweatt to the University of Texas Law School. The Court’s rationale considered both tangible and intangible factors, presaging similar analysis in Brown. In noting that the law school for African Americans was not equal to the state’s premier law school, the Court implied that the establishment of professional schools solely for African Americans could never be considered equal for purposes of Fourteenth Amendment analysis by the federal courts. The law school that the Texas legislature founded for African Americans in 1947 continued to operate and became one of the nation’s leading law schools for producing African American law graduates. In 1976, the law school was renamed Thurgood Marshall School of Law in honor of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. It is located on the campus of Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas, and has one of the most racially and ethnically diverse student bodies of any law school in the United States.

http://lawhighereducation.org/123-sweatt-v-painter.html?newsid=123&seourl=sweatt-v-painter

Brown V. Board of Education

"We conclude that the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." —Chief Justice Earl WarrenIn Topeka, Kansas in the 1950s, schools were segregated by race. Each day, Linda Brown and her sister, Terry Lynn, had to walk through a dangerous railroad switchyard to get to the bus stop for the ride to their all-black elementary school. There was a school closer to the Brown's house, but it was only for white students.

Topeka was not the only town to experience segregation. Segregation in schools and other public places was common throughout the South and elsewhere. This segregation based on race was legal because of a landmark Supreme Court case called Plessy v. Ferguson, which was decided in 1896. In that case, the Court said that as long as segregated facilities were equal in quality, segregation did not violate the Constitution.

However, the Browns disagreed. Linda Brown and her family believed that the segregated school system did violate the Constitution. In particular, they believed that the system violated the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing that people will be treated equally under the law.

No State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.—Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) helped the Browns. Thurgood Marshall was the attorney who argued the case for the Browns. He would later become a Supreme Court justice.

The case was first heard in a federal district court, the lowest court in the federal system. The federal district court decided that segregation in public education was harmful to black children. However, the court said that the all-black schools were equal to the all-white schools because the buildings, transportation, curricula, and educational qualifications of the teachers were similar; therefore the segregation was legal.

The Browns, however, believed that even if the facilities were similar, segregated schools could never be equal to one another. They appealed their case to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court combined the Brown's case with other cases from South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. The ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case came in 1954. The Court decided that state laws requiring separate but equal schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

http://www.streetlaw.org/en/landmark/cases/brown_v_board_of_education

Regents of University of California v. Bakke

" . . . Race or ethnic background may be deemed a "plus" in a particular applicant's file, yet it does not insulate the individual from comparison with all other candidates for the available seats." — Justice Powell, Speaking for the CourtIn the early 1970s, the medical school of the University of California at Davis admitted 100 students each year. The university used two admissions programs: a regular admissions program and a special admissions program. The purpose of the special admissions program was to increase the number of minority and "disadvantaged" students in the class. Applicants who were members of a minority group or who believed that they were disadvantaged could apply for the special admissions program.

In the regular admissions program, applicants had to have a grade point average of at least 2.5 on a scale of 4.0 or they were automatically rejected. In the special admissions program, however, applicants did not have to have a grade point average of 2.5. Sixteen of the 100 spaces in the medical program were reserved only for the disadvantaged students. This is known as a quota system.

From 1971 to 1974 the special program admitted 21 black students, 30 Mexican Americans, and 12 Asians, for a total of 63 minority students.* The regular program admitted 1 black student, 6 Mexican Americans, and 37 Asians, for a total of 44 minority students. No disadvantaged white candidates were admitted through the special program.

Allan Bakke was a white male. He applied to and was rejected from the regular admissions program in 1973 and 1974. Minority applicants with lower scores than Bakke's were admitted under the special program.

After his second rejection, Bakke filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of Yolo County, California. He wanted the Court to force the University of California at Davis to admit him to the medical school. He also claimed that the special admissions program violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment says, in part, "No State . . . shall deny to any person . . . the equal protection of the laws." Bakke said that the University, a state school, was treating him unequally because of his race. He thought that if he were a minority that he would have been admitted to the school.

The university argued that their system of admission preferences served several important purposes. It helped counter the effects of discrimination in society. Since historically, minors were discriminated against in medical school admissions and in the medical profession, their special admission program could help reverse that. The university also said that the special program increased the number of physicians who practice in underserved communities. Finally, the university reasoned that there are educational benefits to all students when the student body is ethnically and racially diverse.

The Superior Court of Yolo County, California agreed with Bakke. It said that the special admissions program violated the federal and state constitutions and was therefore illegal. The Court said that a person's race could not be considered when the University decides whom to admit.

The University of California and Bakke both appealed the case to the Supreme Court of California. This court also declared the special admissions policy unconstitutional and said that Bakke had to be admitted to the medical school. The Regents of the University of California then appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court in 1978 found for Bakke against the rigid use of racial quotas, but also established that race was a permissible criteria among several others.

*Note: These were the racial classifications used by the University of California at Davis at the time

http://www.streetlaw.org/en/landmark/cases/regents_of_the_u_of_california_v_bakke

Loving V. Virginia

Summary

During Black History month we spotlight the landmark Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia (1967), which declared anti-miscegenation laws (laws banning interracial marriages) to be unconstitutional. The Court unanimously held that prohibiting and punishing marriage based on racial qualifications violated the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

ActivityMildred Jeter and her new husband, Richard Loving, returned to their home in Caroline County, Virginia. The newlyweds had recently taken their vows in nearby Washington, D.C. and were happy to begin their new life together as married couple. But there was a big obstacle to their marital bliss. The year was 1958, and Virginia was one of sixteen states that prohibited and punished interracial marriages. Mildred was African American and her husband Richard was Caucasian. Four months into their married life they were indicted by a grand jury.

The following January, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail. The trial judge agreed to suspend the sentence if the Lovings would leave the state for twenty-five years. The judge told Mr. and Mrs. Loving: “Almighty God created the races…and he placed them on separate continents…. The fact he separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.”

The Lovings moved to Washington, D.C. and appealed their conviction on the grounds that Virginia law, The Racial Integrity Law of 1924, violated their rights to equal protection of the law and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously to overturn their conviction and strike down the Virginia law. The Court held, “There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.” The Court also found that the Virginia law deprived the Lovings of liberty without due process of law. “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications …is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of lawhttp://billofrightsinstitute.org/resources/educator-resources/lessons-plans/landmark-cases-and-the-constitution/loving-v-virginia-1967/

Shelly V. Kreamer

Petitioner: Shelley

Respondent: Kraemer Consolidation 

Decided 

Monday, May 3, 1948

Location: Shelley and Kraemer's Neighborhood

Facts of the Case 

The Kraemers were a white couple who owned a residence in a Missouri neighborhood governed by a restrictive covenant. This was a private agreement that prevented blacks from owning property in the Kraemers' subdivision. The Shelleys were a black couple who moved into the Kraemers neighborhood. The Kraemers went to court to enforce the restrictive covenant against the Shelleys.

Question 

Does the enforcement of a racially restrictive covenant violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment?

Conclusion:Decision: 6 votes for Shelley, 0 vote(s) against

State courts could not constitutionally prevent the sale of real property to blacks even if that property is covered by a racially restrictive covenant. Standing alone, racially restrictive covenants violate no rights. However, their enforcement by state court injunctions constitute state action in violation of the 14th Amendment

http://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1949/1947/1947_72

California Proposition 209 (Nov 5, 1996)

The federal, state, and local governments run many programs intended to increase opportunities for various groups--including women and racial and ethnic minority groups. These programs are commonly called ''affirmative action" programs.

This measure eliminated state and local government affirmative action programs in the areas of public employment, public education, and public contracting to the extent these programs involve ''preferential treatment" based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. The specific programs affected by the measure, however, would depend on such factors as (1) court rulings on what types of activities are considered ''preferential treatment" and (2) whether federal law requires the continuation of certain programs.

The measure provides exceptions to the ban on preferential treatment when necessary for any of the following reasons:

To keep the state or local governments eligible to receive money from the federal government.

To comply with a court order in force as of the effective date of this measure (the day after the election).

To comply with federal law or the United States Constitution. To meet privacy and other considerations based on sex that are

reasonably necessary to the normal operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

Public Employment and Contracting

The measure would eliminate affirmative action programs used to increase hiring and promotion opportunities for state or local government jobs, where sex, race, or ethnicity are preferential factors in hiring, promotion, training, or recruitment decisions. In addition, the measure would eliminate programs that give preference to women-owned or minority-owned companies on public contracts. Contracts affected by the measure would include contracts for construction projects, purchases of computer equipment, and the hiring of consultants. These prohibitions would not apply to those government agencies that receive money under federal programs that require such affirmative action.

The elimination of these programs would result in savings to the state and local governments. These savings would occur for two reasons. First, government agencies no longer would incur costs to administer the programs. Second, the prices paid on some government contracts would decrease. This would happen because bidders on contracts no longer would need to show ''good faith efforts" to use minority-owned or women-owned subcontractors. Thus, state and local governments would save money to the extent they otherwise would have rejected a low bidder--because the bidder did not make a ''good faith effort"--and awarded the contract to a higher bidder.

Based on available information, we estimate that the measure would result in savings in employment and contracting programs that could total tens of millions of dollars each year.

Public Schools and Community Colleges

The measure also could affect funding for public schools (kindergarten through grade 12) and community college programs. For instance, the measure could eliminate, or cause fundamental changes to, voluntary desegregation programs run by school districts. (It would not, however, affect court-ordered desegregation programs.) Examples of desegregation spending that could be affected by the measure include the special funding given to (1) ''magnet" schools (in those cases where race or ethnicity are preferential factors in the admission of students to the schools) and (2) designated ''racially isolated minority schools" that are located in areas with high proportions of racial or

ethnic minorities. We estimate that up to $60 million of state and local funds spent each year on voluntary desegregation programs may be affected by the measure.

In addition, the measure would affect a variety of public school and community college programs such as counseling, tutoring, outreach, student financial aid, and financial aid to selected school districts in those cases where the programs provide preferences to individuals or schools based on race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin. Funds spent on these programs total at least $15 million each year.

Thus, the measure could affect up to $75 million in state spending in public schools and community colleges.

The State Constitution requires the state to spend a certain amount each year on public schools and community colleges. As a result, under most situations, the Constitution would require that funds that cannot be spent on programs because of this measure instead would have to be spent for other public school and community college programs.

University of California and California State University

The measure would affect admissions and other programs at the state's public universities. For example, the California State University (CSU) uses race and ethnicity as factors in some of its admissions decisions. If this initiative is passed by the voters, it could no longer do so. In 1995, the Regents of the University of Califor- nia (UC) changed the UC's admissions policies, effective for the 1997-98 academic year, to eliminate all consideration of race or ethnicity. Passage of this initiative by the voters might require the UC to implement its new admissions policies somewhat sooner.

Both university systems also run a variety of assistance programs for students, faculty, and staff that are targeted to individuals based on sex, race, or ethnicity. These include programs such as outreach, counseling, tutoring, and financial aid. The two systems spend over $50 million each year on programs that probably would be affected by passage of this measure.

The percentage of underrepresented minority students admitted to the UC system dropped significantly as soon as Prop. 209 passed. Today, despite a number of policies and strategies employed by the university to diversify its student population, these groups remain a substantially smaller proportion of those admitted to and enrolled at the university's most selective campuses - UC Berkeley and UCLA - than they were before the elimination of race-conscious policies.

What's more, the gap between the percentage of underrepresented minority students graduating from California high schools and the percentage enrolling at UC has widened.

And while the percentage of new UC freshmen from California public schools who are underrepresented minorities has grown since 1995, from 20 percent to 25 percent in 2009, that hasn't kept pace with the changing demographics of California's public schools.

The gap between the percentage of underrepresented minorities graduating from California public high schools and the percentage of resident underrepresented minorities enrolled at UC has grown from an 18 percentage point gap to 23 percentage points, according to university.

http://vote96.sos.ca.gov/BP/209analysis.htm