Sacramento – State lawmakers proposed a plan Friday that would enable the University of California to offer preferential admissions to students of the descendants of enslaved people, part of the Democrats’ struggle to address the legacy of slavery in the United States.
legislation, General Assembly Act 7will allow (but not require) admission preferences for applicants from the University of California, the University of California and private universities, who can prove that they are directly related to those enslaved in the United States 1900 years ago.
If Gov. Gavin Newsom signs, the effort could lead to another collision course with the Trump administration, which has diverse initiatives and universities in its crosshairs.
“While we like to pretend that visits to higher education institutions are fair and based on merit and equality, we know that’s not,” said the compilation hall that wrote the bill ahead of Friday’s last vote. “If you are a relative or descendant of someone rich, strong or well-connected, or an alumni of one of these outstanding institutions, you will get priority.”
But, Brian said: “There is a legacy that we never acknowledge education … a legacy that is excluded, hurt.”
The bill, a top priority for the legislative Black Caucus, introduced 15 bills this year to address the lingering effects of slavery and systemic racism in California.
Although California entered the Union as a “free state” in 1850, slavery continued in the Golden State after the state constitution banned it in 1849. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution 1865 after the Civil War.
California voters ban universities from passing Proposition 209 nearly three decades ago to consider race, gender, race or nationality.
Bryan and other supporters stressed that the language of the bill was tailored by focusing on lineage rather than race to comply with Proposition 209. They say that being descendants of slaves are not agents of race, because not all enslaved people are black, not all black Americans are slaves.
“The story of our country is like this, people who look like me and don’t look like me may be descendants of American movable slavery,” Brian, who is black, said in a July debate on the bill.
Supporters of the measure said Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out agree In the 2023 Affirmative Action case, refugees and formerly enslaved people who received benefits from the government after the Civil War were “racially neutral categories, not black written categories”, and the term “Friedman” was “absolutely excluded race, not race, representatives of race.”
Andrew Quinio, an attorney for the conservative Pacific Law Foundation, told lawmakers in an early debate on the bill that in fact, bloodline is the proxy for race, because descendants of becoming American slaves are “so closely intertwined” with black people.
Instead, the bill could give universities a green light to prioritize “victims of racial discrimination in public education, regardless of race,” he said, which would treat students as individuals rather than relying on “a stereotype of their situation based on race and ancestors.”
He is confident that California “has overwhelmingly overwhelming students who have experienced current discrimination and then preferring preferences based on whether the students have experienced current discrimination, which does not exclude the descendants of slaves.”
Earlier this week, the Democratic-led Legislature also passed Senate Bill 518which will create a new office called the descendants of American slavery. The bureau will create a program to determine whether someone is a descendant of a slave and prove someone’s claim to help them get benefits.
The Legislature also approved Bill 57, approved by Tina McKinnor (D-Hawthorne), which would help the descendants of slavery build generations of wealth passed down through becoming homeowners.
The bill will shelve 10% of loans from a popular plan All California Dreamswhich one Loans for first-time home buyers Value up to 20% of the purchase price of a home or apartment, with a limit of $150,000.
Loans are not charged interest or require monthly payment. Instead, when the mortgage is refinanced or the home is sold, the borrower will repay the original loan, as well as a 20% increase in its value.
Mackinault said in a debate on the bill that the legacy of slavery and racism created a significant difference in home ownership rates, with the descendants of slaves lagging about 30 percentage points behind white families.
The Legislature also adopted McKinnor’s AB 67, a process for those who say they or their families have lost their property through “a remarkable area of racial motivation” to seek return or to cope with it.
Non-partisan legislative analysts say the bill could “create costs at tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars” depending on the number of claims filed, the value of the property and the associated legal costs.
California became the first state in the country to study compensation after a Minneapolis policeman killed George Floyd in 2020, sparking a national conversation on racial justice.
Newsom and state legislators pass a law to create a “National First” Working Team Research and propose remedies to help make up for the legacy of slavery. The group spent many years 1,080 pages report After the abolition of slavery, the impact of government-approved slavery and discriminatory policies.
The report recommends more than 100 policies to help address ongoing racial disparities, including reforms to the criminal justice system and housing markets, with the first of which being undertaken by the Legislature’s Black Caud.
Parliamentarians passed 10 of 14 bills in last year’s compensation plan due to budget deficits, which reform advocates believe is tedious.
Californians feel about compensation depends on what is being discussed. A 2023 poll by the Los Angeles Times and the UC Berkeley Government Institute found voters against the idea of cash compensation With a margin of 2 to 1but there is one A more subtle view About the lasting legacy of slavery and how the state should resolve these mistakes.
Most voters agree that slavery still affects today’s black residents, with more than half saying that California has either not done enough or enough to ensure success shaking.
California prohibited slavery in its 1849 Constitution and entered the union under the 1850 compromise, but loopholes in the legal system allowed slavery and discrimination against previously enslaved people to continue.
California passed a fugitive law (rare in free countries) that allowed slave owners to use violence to capture enslaved people who fled to the Golden State. After the end of the Civil War, the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution of 1865 was ratified, abolishing slavery.
Census records show that, according to a report drafted by the Compensation Working Group, at least one estimated population was close to 1,500 that year, but about 200 enslaved African descendants lived in California, although at least one estimate.
