SAN FRANCISCO — The law that bars the University of California from considering race in student admissions violates the civil rights of black, Latino and Native American students who are underrepresented at the state's most prestigious campuses and blocked from seeking redress through the school's governing board, a class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges.
The federal court suit was brought by the Michigan-based, pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary. It challenges the constitutionality of Proposition 209, a ballot measure approved by California voters in 1996 that prohibited racial or gender preferences in public contracting, education and employment.
A federal appeals court and the California Supreme Court have rebuffed earlier efforts to overturn the 13-year-old law. But Shanta Driver, the group's lead counsel, said a renewed federal challenge is timely because the U.S. Supreme Court has since issued a pair of rulings upholding some school desegregation programs. The gap between Latino and black high school graduation rates and UC enrollment has grown since Proposition 209 was enacted.
"Thirteen years of a ban on affirmative action in the state of California has left, in particular UCLA and Berkeley, with just pitiably low numbers of black and Latino students," Driver said.
At the heart of the complaint is the claim that minority students and their parents are being uniquely disadvantaged in violation of their due process rights because Proposition 209 prevented the university's governing Board of Regents from setting admissions policies that include race, gender and ethnicity, but not other characteristics, as factors.