To the disappointment of many college leaders around the United States, Washington State voters on Tuesday approved a measure to bar their public universities from using racial preferences to admit students, hire employees, or award contracts.
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A chart showing the results of state referenda.
Washington was one of 19 states where voters decided ballot measures of interest to academe.
With 85 per cent of the precincts reporting, 58 per cent of Washington voters had approved the measure known as I-200, which will ban the use of preferences by public higher education and other agencies of state government.
Opponents of I-200 signaled that they would go to court to block it from taking effect. If the measure does become law, however, the University of Washington and other public institutions plan to stop using preferences in admissions and other programs.
Officials at the University of Washington believe that I-200 could cause a 15-per-cent decline in the numbers of black and Hispanic freshmen there. Deans of the university’s law school and other programs fear similar drops.
Supporters of I-200 seized upon these predictions as evidence that the university and other public campuses have been giving away seats in their undergraduate and professional schools to unqualified minority students.
The I-200 forces faced a broad-based coalition of opponents, including many business leaders and led by Gov. Gary Locke, a Democrat and the first Asian-American chief executive of a state besides Hawaii.
The University of Washington’s president, Richard L. McCormick, gave ringing endorsements of affirmative action throughout the fall, but he and other university officials avoided directly attacking I-200. A state law barred them from campaigning on the ballot measure, and politically minded self-restraint also kicked in. (Many members of the Republican-controlled Legislature supported I-200.)
Experts on affirmative action warn that the passage of I-200 could encourage politicians in other states to initiate similar wars at the ballot box.
“I think it’s a bellwether of things to come, but there are even more telling signs out there that affirmative action’s in trouble,” said Michael A. Olivas, a University of Houston law professor. He pointed to recent decisions by federal courts, and by state-government officials, that have restricted the use of affirmative action by colleges in admitting students and awarding contracts.
In other ballot measures considered by voters on Tuesday:
- North Dakotans were poised to reject a referendum that would have stripped the names of state colleges and universities from the state Constitution. With 78 per cent of the ballots counted, 65 per cent of the state’s voters opposed the measure. Critics feared that removing the names of colleges from the Constitution would have made it easier for the state to close some small institutions.
- California voters approved a $9.2-billion bond issue aimed at improving facilities at colleges and schools throughout the state, according to the Associated Press.
- Voters in Maine approved a $20-million bond issue that will benefit research and educational institutions, according to the A.P.
- The A.P. projected that Montana voters had approved a tax that supports the Montana University System, as they are given the chance to do once each decade.
- Nebraska voters defeated a proposal to restrict government spending by limiting the ability of state and local governments to raise taxes, according to the A.P. Also, with more than half of the ballots tallied, about 60 per cent of voters were endorsing the portion of a constitutional amendment that would stop the flow of motor-vehicle-tax revenues to public colleges in the state.
- Voters in South Dakota apparently rejected a ballot measure that would have prohibited the state from using property-tax revenue to support elementary and secondary education, according to the A.P. College officials feared that the measure would have forced the state to divert money from higher education to help the elementary and secondary schools.