Symposium 2007
“Economic Opportunity in California: The Labor and Employment Impact of Prop. 209,” was a symposium held on Friday, October 26, 2007, from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the UCLA Faculty Center. The symposium examined and discussed the 10-year impact of Proposition 209 on public employment, contracting and the public sphere.
THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF PROPOSITION 209: A Decade LaterDownload a PDF of this info
Symposium Overview: Proposition 209, California’s anti-affirmative action initiative, went into effect in 1997. Much of the research on Proposition 209 in the decade since has focused on the impact of the initiative in higher education admissions. There has been comparatively little research examining the impact of the initiative on public employment and contracting, and even less that looks at the secondary socio-economic impacts of the initiative. These issues are becoming increasingly crucial to examine as proponents of Proposition 209 seek to place similar initiatives on the ballot in a number of other states.
Sponsors: The California Coalition to Analyze the Impact of Proposition 209 is a broad-based coalition of groups and organizations that has come together to examine the impact of Proposition 209. The Coalition’s current research initiative is supported in part by grants from the Fulfilling the Dream Fund and the Akonadi Foundation.
The symposium will be co-sponsored by several UCLA institutions, including the Institute for Research on Labor & Employment; the Center for Labor Research & Education (Labor Center); the School of Public Affairs (Departments of Public Policy, Social Welfare, and Urban Planning); the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies; the Asian American Studies Center; the Chicano Studies Research Center; the College of Letters & Sciences, Division of Social Sciences; and the School of Law’s Critical Race Studies Program and Program in Public Interest Law and Policy (PILP).
Timing: The symposium will be planned, and a call for papers issued, in the spring of 2007. The symposium will take place in the fall/winter of 2007, roughly coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the date that Proposition 209 went into effect.
Proposed Audience/Topic Areas: It is anticipated that the call for papers will be issued to a broad range of public policy researchers, sociologists, and economists, as well as legal scholars whose work includes empirical analysis. The symposium will focus on those research areas that have been largely unexplored, including the secondary socio-economic effects of Proposition 209 and the effects of the initiative’s provisions relating to public employment and contracting. This symposium will merge a discussion of existing scholarship with new research on how the socioeconomic conditions of women, people of color, and the State as a whole have been impacted by these changes. It is expected that the exact contours of the symposium will be discussed and agreed upon jointly by the Coalition and the academic institution partners.
The California Coalition to Analyze the Impact of Proposition 209 (Impact 209) analyzes, studies, and publicizes the effects of Proposition 209, California’s anti-affirmative action initiative. Participating members of the Impact 209 Coalition come from a broad range of organizations and academic institutions, including the following:
AGENDA
ACLU of Northern California
Applied Research Center
California Assoc. of Black Lawyers
California Teachers Association
Charles Houston Bar Association
Chinese for Affirmative Action
Equal Educ. Opportunity Initiative
Equal Justice Society
Greenlining Institute
Impact Fund/Discrimination Research Center
Los Angeles Unified School District
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
NAACP
National Economic Development & Law Center
Power PAC
UC Davis
UC San Diego
UC Hastings College of Law
UC Berkeley
Golden Gate University School of Law
UCLA
We the People Democratic Club
The following organizations are currently providing staff support for the research component of the Coalition’s work: Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Equal Justice Society, Greenlining Institute, and Chinese for Affirmative Action.
Further details about the Symposium will be posted here at www.impact209.org as they become available.