|
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
| |
|
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
Students file landmark federal lawsuit to undo Prop 209 and restore affirmative action in CaliforniaBlack, Latina/o and Native American students seeking admission to the University of California (UC) have filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California to overturn California’s Proposition 209 and restore affirmative action in the UC system. The suit—filed in the court of U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, a Nixon ap-pointee—asserts that Proposition 209 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.“It is an injustice and a social explosion waiting to happen for California to enforce a system of de facto segregation in which Latina/o, Black, and Native American students, who comprise a fast-growing majority of California’s high-school students, are almost entirely shut out of this state’s most selective public universities,” said George Wash-ington, a Detroit labor and civil rights attorney. “The level of segregation at UC-Berkeley relative to the state population is matched only in the Deep South. Proposition 209 cannot stand.” BAMN—The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Inte-gration, and Immigration Rights and Fight For Equality By Any Means Necessary — is the organizing body behind the lawsuit. Since its founding in 1995, BAMN has persistently fought to defend affirmative action against right-wing attack across the country. Shanta Driver, a Detroit-based labor and civil rights lawyer and National Chair of BAMN, will serve as lead counsel with George Washington. Ronald Cruz of Oakland, Monica Smith of Los Angeles, and Joyce Schon of Detroit are the other members of the legal team. “This is a new day in California, with students demanding equal access and opportunity in what should be our public universities,” said Issamar Camacho, a UC-Berkeley student who plans to apply to Berkeley Law School, a BAMN organizer and plaintiff. “We won’t sit in the back of the bus any longer.” In 2007, Latina/o, Black, and Native American students comprised 45.1 percent of Cali-fornia’s high school graduates. However, even after 13 years of efforts by the University of California to increase diversity, these groups comprised only 16.9 percent and 19.9 percent of new freshman admits at UC-Berkeley and UCLA respectively. Qualified Latina/o and Black students are being rejected by the UC’s in higher proportions than UC qualified white students,” Driver said. “BAMN and the student plaintiffs are challenging Proposition 209 because La-tina/o, Black, Native American and other minority students are forced to labor under an unequal political procedure in seeking redress for discrimination in admissions. “Every other group in the state of California, from veterans to rural students to disabled students to lesbian gay students have the right to ask the UC Regents to employ an admissions system that will increase their numbers in the UC student body,” added Driver. “ The only group legally barred from petitioning the Regents for a change in the admissions system to increase the admission of students from their communities are Latina/o, Black, and other underrepresented minority students.” “Proposition 209 requires by law permanent de facto segregation in the UC system,” Ronald Cruz, BAMN attorney and Boalt Law School alum. “None of the efforts in the UC’s in the last 13 years have been able to change this reality. We will not allow our state to continue to be the legal, social, and political center of the New Jim Crow.” Shanta Driver, lead attorney and BAMN National Chair, emphasized that “while our legal arguments are irrefutable, whether or not we win this case is a political question—a question of social power. If the new civil rights movement can continue to grow and reach new heights, we can convince even the most conservative judges to restore affirmative action in California.” The defendants in the suit are Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the UC Regents, and UC President Mark Yudof. This article was originally published in the March 1, 2010 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper Discuss it on SBE Forum >> |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
|
All Rights Reserved |
