Thank you to the participants, speakers and staff who contributed to Friday’s symposium on Economic Opportunity: The Labor and Employment Impact of Proposition 209 at the UCLA Faculty Center.

If you registered for the symposium – whether or not you were able to attend – please help us by completing an online survey. It will help us assess the symposium content and planning. Download papers presented at the symposium and other resources on this site.

Special thanks to the Fulfilling the Dream Fund and the Akonadi Foundation for their generous support!

We would like to thank the following organizations and individuals for their assistance: Symposium Co-Sponsors

California Coalition to Analyze the Impact of Proposition 209
Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA
UCLA American Indian Studies Center
UCLA Asian American Studies Center
Black Women Lawyers of Los Angeles
UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education (Labor Center)
UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
UCLA College of Letters and Science, Division of Social Sciences
UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment
UCLA School of Law Critical Race Studies
UCLA School of Law Program in Public Interest Law and Policy
UCLA School of Public Affairs (Departments of Public Policy, Social Welfare and Urban Planning)

Student Organization Co-Sponsors

Afrikan Student Union at UCLA
Asian Pacific Islander Law Students Association
Black Law Students Association
Graduate Students of Color
La Raza (UCLA School of Law)
Muslim Law Students Association
SHARE JD
South Asian Law Students Association

Participating members of the Impact 209 Coalition come from a broad range of organizations and academic institutions, including the following:

AGENDA
ACLU of Northern California
Applied Research Center
California Association of Black Lawyers
California Teachers Association
Charles Houston Bar Association
Chinese for Affirmative Action
Equal Education Opportunity Initiative
Equal Justice Society
Greenlining Institute
Thelton Henderson Center for Social Justice
Impact Fund
Los Angeles Unified School District
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area
NAACP
National Economic Development & Law Center
Power PAC
UC Davis
UC San Diego
UC Hastings College of Law
UC Berkeley
Golden Gate University School of Law
UCLA
We the People Democratic Club

Special thanks to the following individuals:

Anayma DeFrias
Kendra Fox-Davis
Melinda Grodsky
Darnell Hunt
Ginger Johnson
Keith Kamisugi
Swati Kapadia
Letisia Marquez
Anu Menon
Ruth Milkman
David Oppenheimer
Saul Sarabia
Oren Sellstrom
Meg Sullivan
Paule Cruz Takash
Kimberly Thomas Rapp
Alex Tucker

Diversity Management in America and the Affirmative Action Debate in France
Christine Pauwels

The Effectiveness of Affirmative Action in Highway Procurement
Justin Marion

Free to Compete? Measuring the Impact of Proposition 209 on Minority Business Enterprises
Monique W. Morris, Sirithon Thanasombat, Michael D. Sumner, Sara Pierre, Jessica Z. Borja

The Impact of State Affirmative Procurement Policies on Minority- and Women- Owned Businesses in Five States
Tim Lohrentz

Minority Preferences In Public Contracts
Christopher M. Westhoff, Jess J. Gonzalez

Using Race or Ethnicity as Factors in Employee and Contractor Outreach
David Benjamin Oppenheimer

Proposition 209, California’s anti-affirmative action initiative, went into effect in 1997. Much of the research on Proposition 209 in the decade since has focused on the impact of the initiative in higher education admissions. There has been comparatively little research examining the impact of the initiative on public employment and contracting, and even less that looks at the secondary socio-economic impacts of the initiative. These issues are becoming increasingly crucial to examine as proponents of Proposition 209 seek to place similar initiatives on the ballot in a number of other states. 

The symposium, which takes place from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the UCLA Faculty Center, 480 Charles Young Drive East, is organized by the California Coalition to Analyze the Impact of Proposition 209 (Impact 209 Coalition) and UCLA’s ethnic studies centers. Various other UCLA centers, programs and student organizations are co-sponsoring. The Impact 209 Coalition’s current research initiative is supported in part by grants from the Fulfilling the Dream Fund and the Akonadi Foundation.

Thomas A. Saenz, counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, will give the keynote address. Other speakers at the symposium include:

• UCLA Acting Dean Reynaldo Macías, Division of Social Sciences.
• UCLA Associate Vice Chancellor Rosina Becerra, Office of Faculty Diversity.
• Darnell Hunt, UCLA professor of sociology and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies.
• Paul Ong, UCLA professor of urban planning, social welfare, and Asian American studies.
• Ruth Milkman, UCLA professor of sociology and director of Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.
• Bob Laird, former UC Berkeley director of undergraduate admissions and author of “The Case for Affirmative Action in University Admissions.”

 California voters passed Proposition 209 in 1996, enacting a ban on the use of race-conscious equal opportunity programs in public education, employment. The initiative, which was rejected by a majority of the state’s African American, Latino and Asian American voters, went into effect without significant empirical research on the potential social and economic effects on California.

In 1996 and today, much of the public dialogue over Proposition 209 has been driven by rhetoric divorced from social science research. Additionally, the state of California has not assessed the effects of this dramatic policy change, especially in light of the dramatic demographic shifts that have taken place since Proposition’s passage.

Social and racial justice advocates have been concerned about learning the true impact that Proposition 209 had on the state of California and decided to begin articulating a vision for statewide policy solutions that bring about fair and equal access to opportunity.

Bios of speakers, presentation abstracts and papers are available on http://impact209.org.

Due to last-minute cancellations and no-shows, we won’t know about space availability until that day. Please note that registrations accommodated through the waitlist may not receive lunch and space at certain sessions may either be full or require that you sit or stand in a designated overflow area.

Register for the waitlist and view our updated schedule.