SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Supreme Court took up its first affirmative action case in almost seven years today, agreeing to decide the legality of San Francisco's program that grant preferences for minority and female contractors. The court granted a hearing on appeals by two companies that say the city ordinance violates Proposition 209, the 1996 initiative that outlawed race and sex preferences in public contracting, employment and education. A Superior Court judge overturned the ordinance in 2004. But a state appeals court ruled in April that the city might be able to justify the preferential treatment, despite Prop. 209,...