Bid to Let Voters Decide on Repealing Calif. Racial-Preferences Ban Is Halted

The leader of an effort to put before voters the question of repealing California’s ban on the use of race in college admissions on Monday halted the measure, saying that it does not have enough support to pass both houses of the State Legislature, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Sen. Ed Hernandez, the Democrat who wrote the proposal, known as Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, said he and a colleague would instead form a task force to study whether California should change how it admits students to public colleges.

Democrats in the State Senate used their supermajority to advance the measure in January, but it later ran into opposition from Asian-American advocacy groups, who raised fears that the measure would help some ethnic groups at the expense of others.