In 1996, California voters amended their constitution by enacting Proposition 209. It reads: “The state 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 education or public employment or contracting.”
At the time, there were dire warnings that, absent preferential treatment, minority enrollment at state universities would plummet. In fact, the opposite happened. There was an initial drop in minority enrollment, but white student enrollment also dropped — the result of a spike in students refusing to self-identify by race. By 1999, according to the state university system’s statistics, minority enrollment was back at pre-Proposition 209 levels and has been growing since. There were 4,186 non-white freshmen in 1999. There were 13,666 in 2019.
