Affirmative-Action Ban Likely to Remain in Washington State

Elaine Thompson, AP Images

A 21-year ban on affirmative action appears likely to remain in place in Washington State after a coalition led by Asian Americans urged voters to reject a ballot measure they described as discriminatory.

Referendum 88, which would have largely overturned the ban, was trailing early Wednesday by 52 percent to 48 percent. Supporters were hoping late votes would push it over the edge, but most were resigned to its likely defeat.

Ana Mari Cauce, president of the University of Washington, was traveling on Wednesday and unavailable for comment, but Michelle Ma, a campus spokeswoman, said the state’s affirmative-action ban had put the university at a competitive disadvantage in recruiting diverse faculty members and students.

“Assuming this result holds, and the affirmative-action ban remains in Washington, we will remain steadfast in our commitment and efforts within the law to attract and retain a diverse student, faculty, and staff population,” she wrote in a prepared statement.

Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students made up 16 percent of the enrollment at the university’s flagship in 2017, compared with about a quarter of the state’s total college-age population. Asian Americans, meanwhile, are 25 percent of the enrollment at the flagship this fall. In 2017 they made up 11 percent of the state’s college-age population.

Since the affirmative-action ban was approved, the university has seen a surge in international students, the vast majority from China. With international students now representing 17 percent of the flagship’s enrollment, advocates for underrepresented students say that makes it even harder to compete for limited seats.

In April, state lawmakers approved an initiative, I-1000, that would restore the ability of public universities, as well as government agencies, to consider race as one factor in admissions, hiring, and contracting. Quotas would be prohibited, and lesser-qualified candidates couldn’t be hired or admitted based solely on race.

Still, opponents argued that the move was discriminatory, and they gathered enough signatures to put the matter on the ballot. Opening the doors for more black and Hispanic applicants, they argued, would unfairly shut out Asian Americans.

For us, the principle of equal opportunity is not an abstraction. Most of us immigrated to this country with few resources and few ties to American society. We believed that if we worked hard, we could succeed by merit. In return, America granted us an abundance of opportunities. https://t.co/5lm4ite15B

— WA Asians 4 Equality (@waasianequality) November 3, 2019

Yvonne Kinoshita Ward, a civil-rights lawyer who is half Japanese, has argued that despite assurances to the contrary, the measure would legalize “anti-Asian bias through quotas and caps.”

The measure had been divisive among Asian Americans in Washington State, many of whom support affirmative action and argue that greater diversity benefits everyone.

Gary Locke was governor of Washington in 1998, when it became one of the first states to ban affirmative action. Seven other states now have similar bans. Locke, the first Chinese American governor in American history, argued at a recent rally that while Asian Americans have made great strides in society, other ethnic groups haven’t always shared their opportunities.

Locke, who was also a U.S. ambassador to China and a U.S. secretary of commerce, was one of three former Washington governors who wrote an editorial in The Seattle Times this week that argued that Referendum 88 “simply restores fairness to government employment, public-sector contracting, and at our state colleges and universities by explicitly allowing the use of common-sense tools like outreach, recruitment, and advertising to help expand the pool of qualified applicants.”

The debate over Referendum 88 became more heated when a prominent anti-affirmative-action activist, Kan Qiu, likened affirmative action to Jim Crow laws. That prompted a rebuke from the Washington Fairness Campaign, a group supporting affirmative action.

“It’s saddening to see one marginalized group attempting to marginalize others,” wrote April Sims, an African American co-chair of the campaign and secretary-treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council. Qiu, a Seattle-area resident who immigrated from China after participating in the Tiananmen Square student protests of 1989, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.