Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO -- A state appeals court has given San Francisco a chance to reinstate an affirmative action program for minority and female contractors, saying a history of discrimination may justify preferential treatment despite California's Proposition 209. A judge who struck down the 20-year-old program in 2004 failed to review San Francisco's claims that long-standing and pervasive discrimination by both city employees and contractors resulted in firms owned by minorities and women being illegally excluded from winning city business, the First District Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday. If San Francisco can prove those claims, it may be able to show...

Ballot initiatives have been getting shot down like skeet lately in California, but that hasn't always been the case. This year marks the tenth anniversary of one that passed handily but needs to be revisited. In November 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI). The measure states: "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 the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting." This simple, reasonable, language derives from the civil-rights struggles of the...