Resolution Opposing Proposition 54 (Connerly
“Racial Privacy Initiative”):
Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin, Initiative Constitutional
Amendment
Resolved That the Academic Senate of Sonoma State University
endorse the attached Statement on Proposition 54; and further be it
Resolved That the SSU Academic Senate declare its strong opposition to Proposition
54; and further be it
Resolved That the SSU Academic Senate communicate immediately to the ASCSU,
Chancellor Charles B. Reed, the Board of Trustees of the CSU, and the press
that it opposes this initiative.
Statement of the SSU Academic Senate on Prop 54:
Since the 1960's, energized in part by the Master Plan for Higher Education,
the California State University has been deeply committed to the principle of
making higher education available to historically under-represented students,
many of them from ethnic or cultural minorities, and to the goal of expanding
the cultural and gender diversity of its faculty and staff. If passed, Proposition
54 would significantly inhibit the CSU's progress toward realizing these goals.
Proposition 54 would inhibit the ability of agencies such as the California
Post-Secondary Education Commission (CPEC) to carry out its work, thereby reducing
the ability of the CSU to make informed decisions or reach reasoned judgments
about matters of policy. Lacking data collected by the state, CPEC would have
no factual basis on which to determine success of publicly-funded colleges and
universities in providing access to all ethnic/racial groups, or to ascertain
whether some lack equal opportunity in the high schools to complete the admissions
requirements.
By prohibiting the State from collecting data on ethnicity, Proposition 54 would
restrict the ability of faculty, staff, and students to analyze such data to
the benefit of the State and its citizens. It would deprive faculty, staff,
and students of data compiled by the State that is used for scholarly research,
for analysis of trends in California society, economy, and politics, and for
policy planning. The SSU Academic Senate shares the concerns of the Academic
Senate of the UC about the potentially deleterious effects of Proposition 54
on this primary function of the academy (articulated in its online statement
at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/reports/crecnoresp.pdf).
Proposition 54 is, therefore, at its very heart, anti-intellectual and anti-empirical.
Proposition 54 would significantly inhibit the ability of the CSU to realize
its goals of making higher education available to historically under-represented
students, many of them from ethnic or cultural minorities, and the goal of expanding
the cultural and gender diversity of its faculty and staff. By prohibiting all
agencies of the State of California from collecting or maintaining data on race
or ethnicity of employees and other individuals (e.g., students and staff),
Proposition 54 would prevent the CSU from measuring the extent to which it is
succeeding in providing access to all ethnic and racial groups and in diversifying
its faculty and staff positions. If the State of California were unable to collect
data on the race and ethnicity of high-school graduates, there would be no basis
on which to identify which racial or ethnic groups are underrepresented.
Proposition 54 would similarly obstruct the CSU's efforts to gauge the success
of efforts to recruit and retain a diverse faculty and staff. The ways that
the University addresses its goals of opportunity and diversity will change
as the racial and ethnic composition of California changes -- a group that is
under-represented today may not be in ten or twenty years. But it is, and will
be, possible to know who is under-represented only if data are available. Proposition
54, if passed, would deprive CSU of these data. Proposition 54 would therefore
weaken efforts to expand educational opportunity for prospective students from
under-represented groups and to increase diversity of the faculty and staff.
These effects make Proposition 54 antithetical to the policy document entitled
“The Mission of the California State University,” adopted by the
Board of Trustees in November 1985. They put it equally at odds with numerous
statements and reports of the Academic Senate, CSU, various campus Senates,
and the SSU Academic Senate.
The SSU Academic Senate shares the concerns of CPEC, which strongly opposes
this initiative, and those of the many non-partisan organizations that oppose
it, including the League of Women Voters. And it shares the concerns of the
citizens who see it as harmful to their children, their communities, and the
future of this state, blocking the efforts of the University to realize in full
its commitment to the California public, and most especially to the students
it is intended to serve.
From “The Anatomy of Racial Inequality” (2002) by esteemed economist
Glenn C Loury: Consciousness of race in the society at large is a matter
of subjective states of mind, involving how people understand themselves and
how they perceive others. It concerns the extent to which race is taken into
account in the intimate social lives of citizens. The implicit assumption of
advocates of race-blindness is that, if we would just stop putting people into
these boxes, they would oblige us by not thinking of themselves in these terms.
But this assumption is patently false.
Approved by the Senate 9/18/03