The Effects of Proposition 209 on California: Higher Education, Public Employment, and Contracting

Charles L. Geshekter is emeritus professor of history at California State University, Chico, California 95929-0735; [email protected]. This address was originally presented at “Race and Gender Preferences at the Crossroads,” a conference organized by the California Association of Scholars and co-sponsored by the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) and the Center for Equal Opportunity, held January 19, 2008, at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California. A longer version is available from the ACRI, P.O. Box 188350, Sacramento, CA 95818. The author is grateful to Roger Clegg, Sharon Browne, Jay Bergman, John Ellis, and Ward Connerly for their cogent suggestions and valuable criticisms of earlier drafts.

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Introduction

In 1996, Californians overwhelmingly approved Proposition 209 that prohibited all state agencies from using anyone’s race, ethnicity, or gender to discriminate against them or give them preference in university admissions, public employment, or competition for a state contract.

Those who opposed Proposition 209 predicted that ending racial or gender favoritism would result in sharp declines in black and Hispanic college enrollments, setbacks for women in public employment, reduced funds for cancer detection centers and domestic violence shelters, or other alarmingly negative effects.

This article compares such dire predictions with documentary evidence provided by the State Personnel Board, the Department of Finance, the University of California (UC), and California State University (CSU). It relies on data concerning admissions, retention, and graduation of undergraduates from the CSU system and the UC and reviews faculty hiring patterns within both systems. Other tables compare the numbers of white, black, Hispanic, males and females employed in a variety of California state agencies in 1997, after Proposition 209 was approved, and then in 2006, nine years later. 

These statistics document the progress made towards social justice under Proposition 209 and may encourage voters in other states who want to assure that preferential treatment (regardless of whatever else it may euphemistically be called) becomes a thing of the past in the operation of their respective state governments.

These data offer many uncomfortable truths to defenders of racial preferences and gender double standards whose unscrupulous attacks on voter initiatives are likely to persist, regardless of the facts from California. Defenders of double standards and group preferences insinuate that American voters in 2008 cannot understand the simple, straightforward language of the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. So immersed in the doubletalk of persity and obsessed with achieving proportional representation in all walks of life, persity crusaders ignore or dismiss any good news, repeating their tiresome mantra that without racial preferences or gender double standards a chilly climate for persity will envelop the workplace and campuses.

This article demonstrates the dishonesty of such claims. The UC and CSU systems continue to accelerate higher education success for all students by promoting educational practices that support everyone’s academic achievement. The CSU and UC data show that blacks, Hispanics, and other underrepresented groups have suffered no harm, but have steadily increased in the statistically significant areas of high school graduates and university baccalaureate holders across the state.

Despite the constant refrain about needing an “even playing field,” the fact is that getting admitted to a university or starting an academic career or landing a construction contract is not some game. When playing “the persity game,” the defenders of racial preferences or gender double standards prefer to play by no rules. They ignore the fact that disparities in any social category are not proof of discrimination, and that social scientists and geneticists have long recognized that variations within any group are far greater than any variations between such groups.

Proposition 209 in no way hindered the progress of minorities and women in public employment. Predictions about a future deterioration of labor market positions for women and minorities proved utterly unfounded.

In the construction industry, the end of racial preferences and gender set-asides resulted in a decline in the number of certified female- and minority-led businesses that had previously relied on favoritism (Women’s Business Enterprises [WBE] and Minority Business Enterprises [MBE]). This was not a surprising development. Meticulous investigations by the Discrimination Research Center, led by researchers who opposed Proposition 209, confirmed that many of the firms that went out of business after 1997 were not competitive to begin with, a fact that the successful women and ethnic minority business owners seemed easily to grasp when interviewed. By banning quotas and double standards in awarding state construction contracts, the implementation of Proposition 209 saved California millions of dollars (as demonstrated in studies by economist Justin Marion cited below).

The available evidence offers no support for ominous predictions made by opponents of Proposition 209 that the measure would “turn back the clock” on women’s progress or undermine equal opportunities for ethnic minorities.[1] A study from Michigan nonetheless claimed in 2005 that Proposition 209 had “eroded access to services, education, job training and other opportunities for women.”[2] Defenders of gender preferences and set-asides, such as One United Michigan, warned that ending such policies would, in Michigan as in California, “hurt women and girls.” But nothing of the sort ever happened in California.[3]

The hiring and promotion of women as faculty at the CSU and UC systems continued to increase. Women enrolled and graduated in greater numbers than men at the UC and CSU, and majored in a broad cross-section of fields including natural sciences, computer science, mathematics, and technology studies.

While none of this data may ever convince those who still staunchly oppose Proposition 209, it does rebut their predictions that initiatives like Proposition 209 jeopardize women and ethnic minorities. Shanta Driver, the national spokesperson for By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) recently alleged that “the initiatives had a ‘devastating impact’ on ‘under-represented’ groups.”[4]

One searches in vain for such evidence. Allegations like Driver’s rely on abusive terms like “resegregation” or outright fabrications to allege that damage is caused by eliminating racial and gender preferences. Such unsubstantiated claims often receive the uncritical attention of the media that treat them as “moral statistics” requiring no verification. This report corrects these erroneous impressions by reviewing actual statistical information available on California.

University of California Baccalaureates

Disparities in student academic performances in secondary schools are due, of course, to a variety of bitterly debated factors regarding learning conditions. These include stable home environments, nature of parental supervision, socio-economic status, and the quality of neighborhood schools in terms of qualified teachers and counselors, properly equipped facilities, textbooks, and advanced course availability. In addition, ethnic and racial communities vary in their income levels, the importance that each attaches to educational achievement, the presence of books in the home, the amount of television a child is allowed to watch, and a household’s familiarity with higher education.[5]

Contrary to relentlessly negative predictions, the numbers of black and Hispanic undergraduates that were newly enrolled system-wide at the University of California rose steadily from 1998 to 2006. The elimination of ethnic preferences and the prohibition against racial double standards in admissions led to a redistribution of students among the ten-campus system, with fewer only at the most competitive flagship campuses of Berkeley and UCLA.

While there was a significant drop in the numbers of black and Hispanic students at Berkeley and UCLA, table 1 indicates the greater success that ethnic minorities had in actually completing a baccalaureate degree when they attended a UC campus that offered an apparently better match for their academic backgrounds and preparation. 

Table 1
University of California Bachelors Degrees: Ethnicity and Campus, 1999-2006*

UC System	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Change, '99-'06
Asian	10,485	10,578	10,962	12,035	12,686	13,744	14,076	14,383	37%
Black	1,139	1,034	1,023	1,,025	1,056	1,086	1,158	1,170	3%
Hispanic	3,984	3,899	4,099	4,223	4,582	5,981	5,258	5,287	33%
White	12,922	13,116	13,631	14,389	14,649	15,120	15,073	15,127	17%
All	31,949							40,962	28%
UC Berkely	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Change, '99-'06
Asian	2,303	2,213	2,269	2,533	2,596	2,667	2,613	2,533	10%
Black	286	275	258	196	245	226	219	219	-23%
Hispanic	670	616	585	535	580	623	701	636	-5%
White	1,985	1,761	1,906	1,988	2,043	2,026	1,995	2,075	4%
All	6,102							6,446	6%
UC Davis	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Change, '99-'06
Asian	1,575	1,498	1,500	1,665	1,763	1,934	1,127	1,270	44%
Black	130	135	114	143	145	133	138	142	8%
Hispanic	443	394	429	422	536	562	531	577	23%
White	2,027	2,035	2,121	2,293	2,468	2,459	2,488	2,396	18%
All	4,642							5,894	27%
UC Irvine	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Change, '99-'06
Asian	1,675	1,799	1,799	1,980	2,253	2,494	2,461	2,418	44%
Black	65	63	62	84	76	86	126	115	43%
Hispanic	367	337	367	432	389	543	593	531	31%
White	770	727	812	983	1,050	1,286	1,267	1,286	67%
All	3,181							5,021	57%
UCLA	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Change, '99-'06
Asian	2,202	2,211	2,427	2,392	2,492	2,560	2,496	2,529	14%
Black	355	299	267	243	240	236	226	197	-44%
Hispanic	1,002	915	274	914	935	1,051	1,057	1,072	7%
White	2,197	2,326	2,490	2,492	2,465	2,530	2,408	2,401	9%
All	6,195							6,958	12%
UC Riverside	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Change, '99-'06
Asian	611	747	792	942	1,084	1,178	1,276	1,338	118%
Black	87	83	109	117	152	177	198	218	60%
Hispanic	367	389	464	531	621	668	751	737	50%
White	552	578	566	644	720	714	694	706	27%
All	1,762							3,317	88%
UC San Diego	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Change, '99-'06
Asian	1,265	1,278	1,288	1,500	1,443	1,867	2,070	1,952	54%
Black	65	58	57	64	50	59	58	69	6%
Hispanic	319	392	274	407	387	452	464	513	61%
White	1,474	1,567	1,661	1,688	1,657	1,867	1,883	1,831	24%
All	3,530							5,061	43%
UC Santa Barbara	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Change, '99-'06
Asian	591	546	537	596	626	613	696	738	24%
Black	89	77	104	111	94	100	124	124	40%
Hispanic	495	534	573	617	638	695	738	747	51%
White	2,467	2,642	2,651	2,716	2,579	2,587	2,598	2,604	5%
All	4,058							4,823	19%
UC Santa Cruz	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Change, '99-'06
Asian	229	281	345	420	421	428	536	587	156%
Black	60	43	52	66	54	69	69	84	40%
Hispanic	314	318	325	333	296	286	422	460	46%
White	1,410	1,475	1,417	1,577	1,658	1,644	1,740	1,812	28%
All	2,385							3,388	42%

*Sources: The UC Statistical Summary of Students and Staff at http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/uwnews/stat/ (accessed December 1, 2007); UC StatFinder at http://statfinder.ucop.edu (accessed December 5, 2007), http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/Flowtrc_9506.pdf (accessed December 4, 2007); Correspondence with Samuel J. Agronow, Coordinator of Admissions Research and Evaluation, University of California, Office of the President and James Litrownik, Coordinator of Data Management, Academic Advancement, University of California, Office of the President.

In 1999, black students earned a total of 1,139 bachelor’s degrees from the UC. In 2006, that number had increased 3% to 1,170. In 1999, Hispanic students earned a total of 3,984 bachelor’s degrees from the UC. In 2006, that number had increased by 33%, for a total of 5,287 degrees. In 1999, a total of 10,485 Asians earned bachelor’s degrees; in 2006 that number was 14,383.

Since 1998, the number of underrepresented students applying, being accepted, enrolling, and eventually graduating from the UC have all steadily increased. To some extent, these increases are consistent with demographic changes among California high school graduates; since 1996, students from underrepresented groups have grown from 38.7% to 44.8% of the state’s graduating public high school seniors.[6]

The data in table 2 indicate that in Fall 1998, blacks and Hispanics together constituted 19.5% of all UC freshmen and transfers; in Fall 2006, they represented 23% of all new enrollees. Asians were 34% of new enrollees in Fall 1998; in Fall 2006 they were 36%. In other words, ten years after the passage of Proposition 209, non-white ethnic minorities constituted over 60% of all freshmen and transfers at the University of California. When a September 2007 report issued by the UC Undergraduate Work Team of the Study Group on University Diversity constantly advocated the need for a “solution to UC’s diversity ‘problem,’” one wondered what that “problem” actually was.[7] 

A persistent goal of the UC is to have underrepresented ethnic minorities (blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans) eventually enroll in numbers that “reflect” or “encompass” or are “approximately proportionate” to their share of the state’s graduating high school seniors.[8] Whether those students arrive prepared for intellectual challenges and how soon, if ever, they actually graduate seems less important than increasing their admission numbers. But while lowering admissions standards does no one any favors, UC remains committed to an array of efforts to “repair the K–12 pipeline,” also known as the “hemorrhaging K–12 pipeline.”[9]

Faculty at the University of California, 1996–2006

This section summarizes faculty hiring trends at the UC over the past ten years. The official criteria for appointment are stipulated in the Academic Personnel Manual (APM). Every department is bound to judge promise or accomplishment in both teaching and research according to these published criteria. The APM explicitly reminds committees to take exceptional care never to relax its high standards, warning that “superior intellectual attainment, as evidenced both in teaching and in research or other creative achievements, is an indispensable qualification for appointment” (emphasis in original).[10]

The same applies to ethnic minorities as shown in table 5. The percentage of full-time faculty who were ethnic minorities grew from 17.5% to 22% of the total faculty, refuting the misleading claim that “the diversity of the UC faculty has remained flat.”[11] In 1996, over 82% of the entire UC faculty was listed as “white.” Ten years later, that percentage had declined to 78%. Chicano/Latino faculty grew from 313 in 1996 to 438 in 2006, a 40% increase. 
Table 5
UC Full Time Faculty, 1996-2006, by Ethnicity

(Am. Indian = American Indian, African Am. = African American)
                        1996      97      98      99       00       01      02       03       04      05    2006    Increase, 96-06
Am. Indian         21      25      24       21      25       31      29        31      35      38         35        +66%
African Am.     186    184     183   176     184    193     183    195    207    211      205        +10%Chicano/Lat.  313    318     332    331    347     366    371    382    416    424      438        +40
Asian               709    756     775   819    825     909     967  1038  1107 1136   1188        +67
White            5,787 5,923 6,098 6,165 6,129 6,367 6,491 6,615 6,679 6,649 6,653        +15%
In 1996, 82.5% of the entire UC faculty was listed as “White.”
In 2006, 78.1% of the entire UC faculty was listed as “White.”
Source: UC Office of the President, Data Management and Analysis, http://www.ucop.edu/acadadv/datamgmt/welcome.html (accessed December 1, 2007), Biennial Higher Education Staff Information (EEO-6) Reports.

The UC continues to fill faculty openings with a broad range of talented women and ethnic minority candidates who, the available evidence confirms, obtain university employment apparently without resort to policies that violate Proposition 209.

California State University System Baccalaureates

Opponents of Proposition 209 frequently dwelled on the comparably small overall admissions numbers of blacks and Hispanics at UCLA and Berkeley—the two most competitive campuses of the entire UC system—but ignored the fact that the CSU is also a crucial part of California’s accessible public university system.[12] The undergraduate enrollment figures for the CSU system between 1995 and 2006 provide instructive data on admissions, retention, and graduation numbers by race, gender, and ethnicity.

California State University Faculty

Like the UC, the CSU system continues to fill faculty openings with a broad range of talented women and ethnic minority candidates who apparently obtain university employment without resort to policies that violate Proposition 209. The dreadful predictions propagated by many academics and university administrators in Michigan who opposed Proposal 2 in 2006 have never materialized in either of California’s four-year public higher education systems. However, efforts to avoid or neutralize the measure may continue; no official from either system has ever publicly avowed to uphold the letter and spirit of Proposition 209 and punish any employee or committee members who violated it.[14]

The Effects of Proposition 209 on Construction Contracting

Prior to the passage of Proposition 209, a California statute mandated that general contractors demonstrate a good faith effort to subcontract at least 5% of their work on public contracts to WBEs, 15% to MBEs, and 3% to disabled veteran-owned businesses.[15]

Moreover, bids submitted by MBEs and WBEs were granted a 10% reduction when measured against bids from companies owned by white men. Prime contractors who bid on certain types of contracts were required to demonstrate that they had hired a certain percentage of MBE and WBE subcontractors to work on the project or show that they made good faith efforts to meet that quota.

Since the passage of Proposition 209, the California Supreme Court has struck down attempts by municipalities to consider race or gender in their procurement programs.[16] With race or gender preferences no longer in effect, the number of MBEs and WBEs certified to bid on public contracts has declined.[17] Opponents of Proposition 209 insist that this amounts to “unfair access” and is due to continued discrimination within the construction industry—casually termed a “good old boys network”—and that only the use of gender-conscious or race-attentive measures will provide a remedy.

However, no one has demonstrated that racial, ethnic, or gender discrimination has actually occurred against MBEs or WBEs. A simple disparity does not prove discrimination, and no “group” is ever likely to own any particular kind of business in the same proportion as its share of the state’s population. Moreover, “it may be that companies owned by a particular racial group in a particular market do not have the specific expertise or capability of doing the actual work sought. And even if there are, there may not be a problem if these companies are, for non-discriminatory reasons, not submitting bids in the first place.”[18]

There is abundant evidence to support this sensible conclusion. Two of the best compilations of anecdotal material, statistical data, and personal interviews on the effects of Proposition 209 on public contracting derive from compelling studies made by the Discrimination Research Center at UC Berkeley and its successor, the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, ironically strong opponents of Proposition 209.[19]

Throughout the two studies, interviewees from contracting firms still in existence cited their bids, not the race or gender of the company’s owners, as the main reason for their selection. In summarizing these two reports, one must bear in mind that the “underrepresentation of firms owned by this or that ethnic group traceable only to society generally…cannot as a legal matter justify the use of racial preferences, as the Supreme Court has consistently ruled….[W]hat must be shown is that minority- and female-owned firms are either not submitting bids because of discrimination, or that their bids are not being accepted because of discrimination.”[20]

Neither study in California found evidence that companies had been excluded from bidding because of the bidder’s race or gender or due to any unrealistic or irrational requirements. In its reliance on statistical data, focus group responses, and interviews the two reports strongly suggest that it was not discrimination that posed the main obstacles to minority-owned businesses, but more technical barriers such as bonding requirements, insurance, and financing, along with business acumen.

Of the 3269 MBEs certified in 1996, 1005 remained in operation ten years later. In its survey of these surviving companies, the Discrimination Research Center report, entitled Free to Compete? Measuring the Impact of Proposition 209 on Minority Business Enterprises, documents that few “respondents participated in any lending programs, mentorship opportunities, or technical assistance, regardless of whether or not the opportunities were affiliated with the CalTrans DBE Program.”[21] Some participants acknowledged that “private industry was more inclined to work with firms that have the ability to work regionally or nationally, which is beyond the capacity of many MBEs” (35).

This makes efficient business sense, and is not evidence of racial discrimination.

Free to Compete? contains candid admissions from participants who “noted that DBE programs incorporated a significant amount of ‘hand holding,’ which did not encourage MBE owners to learn the business aspects of their industry…[and] participants agreed that they should be evaluated not by whether they are people of color, but rather, on the merit of their skill, work, and reputation” (35–36, emphasis added).

According to owners of surviving firms, “a lack of business savvy on the part of many MBEs contributed to their failure” (36), a likely result if race-consciousness counted more for success than business acumen. When asked which survival strategies were most effective, the respondents advised that “firms owned by people of color need to utilize basic business development practices to invest in their own companies,” that their “owners must be persistent” and “seek every opportunity to demonstrate their ability to perform well and commit themselves to developing relationships with individual companies and public agencies” (37)—sensible values and indisputable entrepreneurial habits, regardless of one’s gender or race.

The final pages of Free to Compete? contain profiles of two successful businessmen:  Miguel Galarza (a Hispanic man) and Robert Wilson (a black man). Galarza admitted that he was “uncomfortable with the business model of relying on the DBE program to provide contracts that would sustain his business.” He also “understood that the federal DBE program was designed to open the door for MBEs and that they should serve as training wheels, not permanent fixtures to sustain the life of a business enterprise” (38). Galarza emphasized that sound business principles such as “leave the profit in the company instead of using it as a personal profit,” “learn accounting and always pay your taxes on time,” and “bid as a primary contractor” all became part of his organizational mantra (39).

By 2006, Galarza’s company employed thirty people and earned over $7 million in revenue. The report concludes that for Galarza, “the impact of Proposition 209 was more visible among those who would have been his competitors—those who, in their reliance on the race-conscious DBE program, may not have been able to survive in an industry run on personal relationships” (39, emphasis added).

On the other hand, Robert Wilson admits his company initially declined for a few years, but by 2004 he reversed its slide by “moving from industrial electric projects to residential projects” (41). According to the report, Wilson “attributes the survival of his business to his belief in God, his knowledge of the trade, his ability to be flexible, and his ability to live with minimal resources” (41). Wilson makes no mention of his race.

Free to Compete? concludes that Wilson learned “as result of Proposition 209, that ‘business has no color.’ From his experience of success, loss and rebuilding, [he] has identified stumbling blocks and shown a way to break down the financial barriers that keep MBEs from succeeding as public contractors, and established himself as a survivor, in more ways than one” (41).

Free to Compete? indicates that double standards had been used in the construction industry, and shows that the firms that continued to thrive and grow over the past ten years shared several things in common. Its central finding was that many of the firms that went out of business were simply under-financed and poorly run. The purported presence of racial or gender discrimination was never shown to be the basis for weaker performance.

In the case of WBEs in the construction industry, A Vision Fulfilled? The Impact of Proposition 209 on Equal Opportunity for Women Business Enterprises, a report produced by the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at the UC Berkeley School of Law, showed that for most women in business, limited experience in borrowing, difficulties in demonstrating overall creditworthiness, lower rates of homeownership, and poor capital resources were the key factors that limited their access to financial resources.

Owners of successful WBEs attributed their longevity to maintaining connections with civic, professional, and social organizations or networks that involved potential clients or contracts, and shifting their focus from public agencies to private sector or nonprofit organizations. The surviving companies were led by women who possessed the same tenacity, consistency and shrewd business sense shown by men and who spent time and money to respond only to “Request for Proposals” “that perfectly match their expertise and that are received in a timely fashion.”[22] There was no evidence that any contractor’s low bid was rejected because a woman or an ethnic minority member submitted it.

According to Sharon Browne, the lead attorney in the Hi-Voltage Wire Works case (see note 16), “Proposition 209 presents zero tolerance for programs that discriminate against or grant preference on the basis of race in its public contracting program.”[23] Nevertheless, to this day, opponents of Proposition 209 disdain its terminology and refer euphemistically to preferential practices as “race- and gender-conscious equal opportunity programs.”

A study by political scientist George La Noue shows how the California Supreme Court’s Hi-Voltage decision interpreted Proposition 209 “to bar flatly racial preferences, no matter what compelling interest a jurisdiction asserted. Disparity studies are no longer much of a factor in California as related to state funded contracts.”[24]

Nonetheless, in August 2007, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) submitted a new request to the federal government that it be allowed to institute a 13.5% participation goal for minority- and women-owned businesses in contracting as a response to what Caltrans termed a “discriminatory pattern in past contracting.”[25]

Research by economist Justin Marion of UC Santa Cruz suggests that such affirmative action programs were not cost-effective. In the wake of Proposition 209, Marion found that “the winning bid on state-funded contracts fell by between 3.1 and 5.6 percent relative to similar federal-aid contracts.”[26]

In 1996, Caltrans awarded $1.4 billion in contracts, of which $50 million (3.5%) went to women-owned businesses. Six years later, in 2002, Caltrans awarded $3.4 billion in contracts; women-owned businesses received $117 million (3.4%). Data are not available from 2002 through 2006.

As Roger Clegg has stated succinctly, twelve years after the passage of Proposition 209 “Caltrans should strive both to avoid using the preferences banned by the state constitution and to comply with federal law…[and] should be going out of its way to avoid the use of preferences based on race, ethnicity and sex—not out of its way to find excuses for them.”[27]

The Effects of Proposition 209 on Statewide California Public Employment

The public employees labor force in California is the largest and most diverse in the United States. There are two broad categories of state employees: those who work for one of the over 150 agencies and departments; and those who work in the two public higher education institutions, the UC and the CSU systems.

Statistics obtained from the State Personnel Board (SPB) indicate the total number of employees in each of the 86 departments with over 50 employees, broken down by gender and race over the past ten years. This report further highlights the ten largest departments with over 4500 employees.

Between 1997 and 2006, the size of the public employees workforce fluctuated in a manner that reflected the overall economic status of the state: from 1997 to 2002, the public workforce grew by 14%; from 2002 to 2006, it contracted by 4%. Yet over this nine-year period, blacks maintained an 11% share of the public labor force, while Hispanics increased from 18% to 21%. Over this nine-year period, the percentage of public employees who were men inched up 1%, from 52% to 53%.

In nine of the ten largest state agencies, the percentage of white employees declined between 1997 and 2006, sometimes severely. In the Department of Consumer Affairs, for instance, the number of white employees declined from 68% in 1997 to 60% in 2006. A similar decrease occurred in the Franchise Tax Board, where employment of white workers dropped from 52% in 1997 to 44% by 2006. At the Departments of Mental Health, Motor Vehicles, and Transportation, the number of white employees dropped by 14%, 9%, and 10%, respectively.

For California’s public workforce as a whole, the number of white employees dropped from 57% to 50% between 1997 and 2006.

The gender increases among the state’s public employees slightly favored men, 53.8% to 46.2%. An aggregate of 10,296 men and 8,846 women, respectively, were added to the public workforce between 1997 and 2006. In terms of ethnic and racial groups, 9,953 Hispanics and 1,416 blacks joined the workforce, while the overall number of white public employees decreased by 3,701. The California public employee sector grew by 19,142 between 1997 and 2006. Within that increase, 52% was Hispanic and 7% was black; Asians and Filipinos were the other main beneficiaries.

Among the state’s ten largest agencies, the greatest disparities between men and women remained unchanged between 1997 and 2006. For example, men outnumbered women in the California Highway Patrol, 76% to 24%, the Department of Forestry, 83% to 17%, and the Department of Transportation, 74% to 26%. Conversely, women continued to outnumber men at the Franchise Tax Board, 66% to 34%, the Compensation Insurance Fund, 68% to 32%, and the Department of Motor Vehicles, 73% to 27%.

It appears that these disparities are due to personal choice, assorted risk elements, or physically demanding job requirements, since discrimination or preferences in the workplace based on gender (unless approved as a bona fide criteria for employment) are prohibited.

California Highway Patrol

The California Highway Patrol (CHP) provides several reasons for persistent patterns in the gender distribution in that agency. Aside from non-uniform clerical positions from which people can shift to other state agencies, there are seven categories within which uniformed personnel are classified: cadet, officer, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, assistant chief, and chief. Each category has its own clearly stipulated requirements for inclusion and promotion.

The entry-level CHP position is “cadet.” The age range for cadets is between twenty-one and thirty-five, and applicants must hold a high school diploma. After passing a series of written, physical, and driving tests, all cadets must complete a rigorous twenty-seven-week paramilitary-style training regimen. Even from that entry level, the annual dropout rate is consistently 33%. In discussions with CHP officers, they cited three obstacles that make it difficult to attract more female cadets: 1) the rigors of a live-in academy mean that some women would be separated from their children; 2) cadets are almost always obliged to relocate after graduation from the academy; and 3) the mental and physical demands of the paramilitary training still seem to discourage more women than men.

A review of CHP hiring and promotion figures under Proposition 209 indicates that the overall number of employees remained nearly constant: 9,756 in 1997 and 9,734 in 2006. The number of employees who were men increased by 1% to constitute 76% of the CHP workforce. The number of Hispanic CHP employees increased from 17% to 21%, while the numbers of blacks remained at 6%, and the number of whites declined from 72% to 66%.

Conclusion

The data in this article confirm that Proposition 209 did not diminish educational or employment opportunities in California, as ethnic minorities and women have continued to make steady progress in both areas. Despite the temporary declines in enrollments that were noticeable only at the state’s two most elite public universities, the overall population of underrepresented minority students rose steadily as more entered and more graduated from the institutions for which they were fully qualified.

This article highlights the actual numbers of undergraduate degrees awarded rather than simple statistics on admitted freshmen, although there were noticeably significant jumps in ethnic minority enrollments at UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara. The combined number of blacks and Hispanics who annually earned a bachelors degree at the UC rose from 5,123 in 1999 to 6,457 in 2006, a 26% increase in seven years. Both the UC and CSU systems have expanded their race-neutral outreach efforts to help prepare for college low-income students from school districts with low university participation rates, partnering with those schools to enable them to develop a more academically sound curriculum.

Ending racial preferences and gender double standards in California has produced none of the social traumas that Proposition 209 opponents swore would occur. No campus ever became remotely “lily white” or “resegregated,” to use the divisive racist terms reflexively deployed by these adversaries. Instead, differences in university academic performances narrowed considerably, as there were fewer mismatches between students’ levels of preparation to succeed in college and the institutions in which they enrolled, and from which they eventually graduated.

The evidence from public contracting, especially transportation construction, suggests that weaker, less competitive firms that were previously dependent on racial quotas or gender set-asides predictably failed when such designations were no longer legally available. Those contractor and subcontractor businesses headed by women or ethnic minorities that thrived and expanded did so because they were run by people who had the qualities necessary for success in the business world: patience, hard work, ingenuity, innovativeness, education, and the ability to delay gratification. That put them in a position to enjoy the financial rewards that came with those decidedly middle-class values.

They were judged as individuals by their own character and merits, not by the color of their skin, their gender, or stereotypes. As Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker put it, “Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.”[28]

Over the past twelve years, public employees have been hired through improved recruitment and screening, given better training, and evaluated fairly and equitably on the job. As race and gender continue to recede as qualifications for employment in California, one hopes that the defenders of double standards will retreat from their antagonism to Proposition 209.

Gender differences that persist among college majors or in occupational concentrations anywhere in America primarily reflect individual differences in career choices, not discriminatory barriers to women’s advancement. In 2005–06, women earned 66% of all doctorates in both education and the health sciences, and 59% of those in the social sciences. Men earned 80% of the doctorates in engineering and 70% of all doctorates in the physical sciences. In 2006 nationwide, the proportion of students in graduate schools who were members of a racial or ethnic minority was 28%, up from 26% in 2005.[29]

In the years since Proposition 209 was enacted, the gaps in California public employment rates between men and women, and between whites, blacks, and Hispanics have continued to narrow. Racial favoritism and gender preferences are not the reasons for the redistribution of public employment jobs, as the magnitude and nature of those shifts remain small.

This is good news indeed. California under Proposition 209 has been a success story. It’s a shame that the “diversity industry” remains stubbornly unable to join the celebration.