The Impact of  Proposition 200

James N. Gregory
and UW-AAUP Executive Committee

Would the US Army have been better off without generals like Colin Powell and John Stanford? Will King County schools be improved by having fewer Black, Latino, and Asian American teachers? Will we all by safer if the police forces and fire departments return to the days of all male, all white hiring practices? Will Nordstroms be a better store without federal and state pressures to integrate its sales staff and management? Will the University of Washington provide a better educational environment if the already small percentages of African-American students (3.4%), Latinos (3.8%), and Native Americans (1.6%) are reduced?

These are some of the questions that need to be asked as the legislature contemplates the proposal to abolish affirmative action. What will be gained? What will be lost?

The gains will be hard to find. Only tiny numbers of whites have actually been inconvenienced by affirmative action. We certainly hear stories. But many of the people who think that they missed out on a job or promotion because a woman or minority candidate received preferential treatment are mistaken.

Most affirmative action programs work without giving preference to anyone. They simply seek to broaden the pool of potential applicants or otherwise insure that women and minorities are fully and fairly evaluated. The more controversial programs are usually found in agencies or companies where there has been a demonstrated pattern of cronyism or hostility to women or minorities, as in certain police and fire departments. Even in those cases complainers often exaggerate the effects. Many who complain would not have gotten the job anyway. Somebody else—minority or nonminority—would have been deemed more qualified.

Proponents play on imaginary notions that whites, and particularly white males, are losing all sorts of opportunities to less qualified women and minorites. It is simply not true.

What do little good, but much damage. What will be lost? The answers are beginning to emerge in California where a similar measure recently became law. The University of California reports plunging minority enrollments in a number of programs. This is partly because of the new admissions policies, but it is also because minority students who have been accepted are often choosing to go elsewhere rather than contend with what they perceive to be a hostile environment.

Is that what we want in this state? Do we want to see African-American, Latino, and Native American enrollments decline as our best students accept offers from out-of-state schools and others are turned away altogether? Do we want to follow California into the morass of hostility and heightened inequality?

There is another lesson coming out of California that may be even more alarming. Foes of affirmative action in that state are following up their victory with a campaign of surveillance and litigation that is soon going to have a chilling effect on all sorts of opportunities for women and minorities. A perverse irony is now being exposed. Backers of Prop 200 argue that successful minorities are stigmatized by affirmative action which causes their qualifications and accomplishments to be viewed with suspicion. And supposedly that will change once affirmative action is no longer the law of the land.

The reality will be just the opposite. Backbiting and suspicions about qualifications are not going to disappear. They are going to get worse and, more importantly, they are going to move into the courts. It is already happening in California. Conservative groups and opportunistic attorneys are monitoring public agencies and forcing them to prove that they are not practicing affirmative action. That may sound appropriate at first glance, but think about what it really means. It means that employers are going to have to be careful when they hire a person of color or promote a woman instead of a man. Proposition 200 is going to shift the legal climate much more dramatically than most people realize. In the frenzy of anti-affirmative action policing frustrated employees or job seekers who see a person of a different race or gender move ahead will now have very substantial incentives to file law suits claiming discrimination. Employers are going to have to spend time and money defending themselves.

How long will it be before some managers and employers are thinking twice about hiring or promoting a minority candidate? It has taken thirty years to pry open the doors of opportunity and in many workplaces they are still not open wide enough. Proposition 200 is not going to create a level playing field; it will do more than abolish affirmative action. The real danger is that it will radically change the legal climate and create reverse pressures that will add to the obstacles that minorities already face when applying for jobs and seeking promotions.

Proposition 200 turns back the clock. Its claim to speak in the name of civil rights and equal opportunity is pure fraud. Thirty years of efforts to counteract racism and sexism in the schools and workplaces of our state are in danger. Proposition 200 will take us further and further away from the kind of society that most Americans envision when they embrace the concepts of equal opportunity and fairness for all.

James N. Gregory is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington and serves on the Executive Board of the American Association of University Professors, UW Branch.