Racial equality is back on the California ballot, and its code name is Proposition 209.
“The subtext of this debate is race in America and what we need to do about it,” said Eva Paterson, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.
Paterson was among four panelists to participate in a discussion sponsored by the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council on Prop. 209 Thursday of last week at Belmont’s Peninsula JCC.
It was the third such Prop. 209 debate last week, with others taking place at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills and Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon.
Prop. 209, which will appear on the November 5 ballot under the title California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), says that state government “shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.”
Opponents of Prop. 209 charge that this language was intended to trick voters into believing that the proposition favors affirmative action, when it actually eradicates most state-run affirmative action programs as well as many racially based outreach programs, scholarships and counseling.
But supporters of the bill insist that only a policy of treating everyone equally will lead to true racial equality.
“Affirmative action heightens ethnic hostility; it heightens ethnic differences,” said Ron Unz, a Republican candidate for the 1994 gubernatorial nomination.
Unz, an ardent Prop. 209 supporter, called affirmative action an “unmitigated disaster,” claiming that similar programs throughout the world have left a trail of bloody civil wars in their wake.
Unz, who would support socioeconomically based affirmative action programs, insisted that current racially based programs aid mostly middle-class minorities and women while failing to help the poorest, who need help the most.
But Paterson, who claims race is a separate issue, called herself an example of someone who had the door of opportunity opened to her because of affirmative action.
“Affirmative action is a remedy to past and present discrimination” such as slavery and below-average schools in minority neighborhoods, she said.
Mark Schickman, president of the San Francisco Bar Association and a JCRC vice chair, based much of his anti-Prop. 209 argument on Jewish law and ethics.
“One of the prime tenets of Judaism is the equality of every being,” Schickman said. “The story of creation and of one God is a story of equality of all people.”
While the Bible creates rules designed to give unequal advantages to the oppressed, he added, that is not a sign of inequality but one of equality.
For instance, Shickman said, Jewish law states that in commercial transactions, one is not allowed to take collateral from the poor if they need the money to live — but one can take collateral from the wealthy.
However, “Prop. 209 is saying, `We don’t want our government to address inequality,'” he added.
Hal Plotkin, an independent journalist and a self-described Democratic activist, saw the early development of Prop. 209 in talks between various legislators.
“Those conversations were a catastrophe,” Plotkin said. “They ended up in shouting matches and people being thrown out of the room.”
Plotkin believes that California taxpayers lack confidence in their public institutions because of affirmative-action programs.
“If we eliminated these [affirmative-action programs] and went about trying to achieve diversity in more creative ways, the result might by that the public will begin to change from their current antipathy towards public institutions,” he said.
After almost two years of debate, the JCRC has released a statement opposing Prop. 209. Plotkin, however, says that California Jews are split on the issue.