Possessive Investment: California, 209 and the Reconstruction of Racist Educational *Policy
"This study is concerned with the development of educational policy in the State of California. The California Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 209), as anti-affirmative action legislation, was composed and implemented with the intent to limit the access of African-American and Latino/a students to public institutions of higher education in the University of California (UC) system. Through examination of the policy's genesis to the final court decision declaring its constitutionality, the document seeks to identify the use of ""colorblind"" rhetoric to disguise racial discrimination. Using the tenants of Critical Race Theory (CRT), the study places Proposition 209 within a history of racial discrimination and exclusion. Opposing popular rhetoric limiting racism to ""isolated"" incidents, the study identifies 209 as racist macro-educational policy. Demonstrated by decreasing enrollments of African-Americans and Latino/as at California's elite public institutions, the account seeks to utilize CRT as an epistemological and methodological construct. The process enables researchers to identify intent on behalf of the authors of the proposition, supporters in the California Legislature, and members of the UC Board of Regents. Through the reversal of civil rights language and policy, California citizens joined the national trend in the elimination of ""race-based"" policies. In critique, the document argues developing the ability to ""not see race"" as problematic in the context of a racialized society. As attempts to address the functions of racism are ignored by the California government and federal courts therein, Proposition 209 enforces the intent of its authors and supporters."
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign