Written by Michael Palomba
The California Federation of College Republicans (CFCR) coalition has issued a formal statement opposing ACA 5. If you haven’t heard of ACA 5 yet, it’s a racist and regressive affirmative action resolution that was recently passed by Democrats in the State Legislature.
ACA 5 is sponsored by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber and co-sponsored by other Democrats, including Lorena Gonzalez. The resolution aims to repeal Prop 209, which added this equality clause to the California Constitution:
“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.”
ACA 5 would remove this clause, allowing race, gender, ethnicity, and the like to once again be a factor in employment, college admissions, and more. As I’ve argued in the past, these were infamous practices of the 20th century, and they are best left there. We do not need to recreate racist laws that past generations fought tirelessly to end.
As the great Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
ACA 5 directly contradicts MLK’s wishes, and reverts our state to a time when racial discrimination was seen as permissible. The California Federation of College Republicans has submitted a letter, signed by 26 registered student organizations, opposing the resolution.
In the letter, the CFCR make clear that the “passage of ACA 5 would disproportionately negatively affect Asian-American students, who represented 35% of UC freshmen last year but only 14.7% of the state population” and that “addressing racial disparities in education should begin with meaningful and substantive reforms rather than falling for the contradiction of reinstituting racial discrimination in the name of achieving racial equality.”
The full letter can be viewed here and a list of civil rights organizations opposed to ACA 5 can be seen here.
