The recent reversal of the injunction against the controversial Proposition 209 by a federal appeals court will have little or no effect on San Diego State University, according to university officials.
Because SDSU does not make admission decisions based on race, that aspect of the California Civil Rights Initiative will not impact SDSU.
“The problem is in the perception of students and families in the community,” said Gonzalo Rojas, director of Student Outreach Services. “The public reaction is that public education is not open to minorities.”
Rojas said a comprehensive public information campaign is needed.
“We need to communicate with school districts and the community that nothing has changed at SDSU,” Rojas said.
Passed by voters in November, Proposition 209 prohibits preferences based on race or gender in the areas of state employment, contracting and education.
SDSU President Stephen L. Weber said of the ruling, “From what I understand from the press, it’s a setback for those of us who oppose Proposition 209.”
A petition for a temporary restraining order was filed on Nov. 6, 1996, the day after the measure was passed by voters by a 54 percent margin. The order barring implementation of the initiative was issued by U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson on Dec. 23.
The order was issued on the basis that the people who sued to stop the implementation of Proposition 209 demonstrated a likelihood of success on their claim that it may violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment.
On Dec. 31, supporters of Proposition 209 filed to have the case heard before the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It was argued before judges Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, Edward Leavy and Andrew J. Kleinfeld on Feb. 10. The unanimous opinion of the panel was announced on April 3.
“If the district judge relies on an erroneous legal premise, the decision operates to thwart the will of the people in the most literal sense,” O’Scannlain wrote in the panel’s opinion. “What the people of California willed to do is frustrated on the basis of principles that the people of the United States neither ordained nor established.
“A system which permits one judge to block, with the stroke of a pen, what 4,736,180 state residents voted to enact as law tests the integrity of our constitutional democracy.”
The decision also said the central purpose of the Equal Protection Clause “is the prevention of official conduct discriminating on the basis of race.”
The 14th Amendment forbids such conduct on the principle that “distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.”
In the opinion of the judges, “the first step in determining whether a law violates the Equal Protection Clause is to identify the classification it draws. Rather than classifying individuals by race or gender, Proposition 209 prohibits California from classifying individuals by race or gender.”
The next step in the judicial process will be an application by opponents of Proposition 209 to the entire 9th Circuit. If the court does not hear the case, the case will go to the Supreme Court. If it is not heard there, Proposition 209 will become an enforceable law.
“This is a multi-act drama, and some believe we are not at the last scene,” Weber said. “I will be interested to see how this plays out.”
