Prop 54: What a Good Idea
By Daniel Kleinman
Contributing Writer

In the weeks leading up to the special election which is just around the corner, there has been a lot of talk on campus about Proposition 54, and all of it negative. As one of its proponents, I hopeto lay out here for the benefit of the student body the reasons behind my informed decision to vote for the highly mischaracterized and misunderstood Prop. 54.

The most important thing to know about Prop. 54 is that it is a largely symbolic gesture and that its actual effects are minimal. The independent Legislative Analyst’s Office concurs, writing that “Much of the race-related information collected by state and local government agencies could continue to be collected under the measure’s exemptions.” I realize this contradicts popular rhetoric, but if you look at the text of the proposition, you can see that this applies to things like healthcare and education. Article (f) clearly states that the “otherwise lawful classification of medical research subjects and patients shall be exempt” from Prop. 54. It is the deliberate inclusion of the word “patients” that makes this exemption comprehensive. After all, if you walk into a doctor’s office or are rushed to the ER, you become a patient. And if an organization wants to perform a study on the demographics of particular diseases, nothing in Proposition 54 will stop them from doing that.

Due to another important exemption, listed under article (i), other areas of concern like education are largely exempted from Prop. 54 because the prop. explicitly states that it does not prohibit “action which must be taken to comply with federal law, or establish or maintain eligibility for any federal program, where ineligibility would result in a loss of federal funds to the State.” Again, the LAO allays concerns by writing that most of the information collected in public schools is required by the federal government.

Even though very little information will actually be banned, a common question is, why ban any information at all? One good reason is that information can be misused, as it was with the Antelope Valley 4H Club. The state recently threatened to ban the agricultural club – which consists of students between 5 and 18 years old and welcomes all who wish to join – from participating in a community fair because they did not meet the state’s ‘diversity quota’ and were thus deemed ineligible for public funding. This is an example of an abuse of unnecessary data which would be banned under Prop. 54.

This is all well and good, but none of it addresses the central issue: what is Prop. 54 about? It is not about ending racism in California, because legislation cannot hope to cure the disease of prejudice. But it IS about calling a referendum on what Californians think of the concept of race consciousness. Personally, I think that even though race matters, it shouldn’t. Personally, I dislike how my taxpayer money funds certain expressions of the concept of race consciousness, such as additional, segregated graduation ceremonies (for

example, UCLA has one each for Latinos, Filipinos, Asian Pacific Islanders, African-Americans, Iranians, and American Indians), which seem to be more divisive than unifying. And personally, I plan to express my feelings on issues like these by voting for Prop. 54.

Let me close with a surprising fact: according to the 2003 Multilingual Survey of California Voters, whites are actually the racial group least likely to support Prop. 54. Why would minorities vote for the proposition? Not because they believe that there will ever come a time when we simply won’t see race, but because they can see a day when race won’t matter. While they know that Prop. 54 won’t get us there, they acknowledge it as a step in the right direction.

We live in a race-obsessed society. And yet in spite of this, there are those who question the need for a step toward colorblindness, toward unity, toward unhyphenated-Americans. If the ideal of solidarity – not on the divisive basis of race, but on the unifying basis of nationality – isn’t a compelling reason to vote for Prop. 54, then I don’t know what is.