Descendents of Former Slaves Given College Admissions Preferences Under California Legislation
In its continuing mission to be the wokest state in the union, my home state has now taken performative, virtue-signaling politics to a whole new low.
California has introduced legislation, AB-7, encouraging universities to give admissions preferences to the descendants of former slaves.
In its continuing mission to be the wokest state in the union, my home state has now taken performative, virtue-signaling politics to a whole new low.
Perhaps the California Legislature needs a legal refresher:
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the government from discriminating against individuals based solely on their race unless a law meets the strictest constitutional scrutiny.
This protection does not apply only to minorities, but to all people.
Only two years ago, in the Students for Fair Admissions case, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that this protection is as strong as ever.
And in 1996, California voters approved Proposition 209, which specifically bars colleges from considering race, sex, ethnicity or national origin in admissions.
In other words, AB-7 is clearly opposed by both federal and state law.
But California lawmakers have never let that stand in the way of their request to cure alleged past discrimination with current discrimination.
Perhaps recognizing AB-7’s inherent vulnerability to legal challenge, supporters of the bill have made clear that the language used was specifically chosen to be focused on lineage, and not on race.
According to Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles), who authored the bill and is black, “The story of our country is such that people who look like me and people who do not look like me could be descendants of American chattel slavery.”
See if you can follow the logic (I can’t).
The descendants of former slaves are disadvantaged because of the color of their skin, but the color of their skin also has nothing to do with their disadvantage.
Even Harry Houdini would be impressed with this attempted sleight of hand.
If “lineage” were not a proxy for race (it is, of course), AB-7’s criteria for connection with enslaved ancestors renders the standard nonsensical.
If I am a wealthy and white descendent of someone who before 1900 was enslaved, I can be considered for preferred college admissions no matter the actual circumstances under which I was raised or educated.
Of course, lineage being a proxy for race is the entire point of the legislation.
AB-7 references the specific concept for “chattel slavery,” or owning a person outright. And in American history that regrettably means one thing: black people.
Clearly, the Legislature seeks to do nothing more than feed stereotypes in which we each shed our individual agency in exchange for being categorized in neat racial boxes. Gone are the admonitions to judge individuals based on the content of their character and not their skin color.
If you have black skin, you must automatically be disadvantaged.
Not only is AB-7 unconstitutional and illegal, it is offensive.
Unfortunately, AB-7 has now been approved in both legislative chambers and awaits only the signature of future presidential nominee, current Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The Equal Protection Project will continue to monitor this situation, and if the legislation is approved, will explore ways to fight back.
Reminder: we are a small organization going up against powerful and wealthy government and private institutions devoted to DEI discrimination. Donations are greatly needed and appreciated.
———–
Timothy R. Snowball is a Senior Attorney at the Equal Protection Project.
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Comments
In the music business wr stopped calling them slaves in favor of “interns” decades ago… 😅
Silicon Valley calls them H1B.
its a game but no joke
so they get the money b/c in reality they can get rubber stamped into whatever field they desire….pilots/doctor/ lawyers etc etc and then have to either quit or get fired whereas they will get a “settlement” due to some imagined “insult”,, or just keep the job and wreak havoc
what proof is needed other than skin tone to claim distress!!??
none
if ca was cut off from the rest of the countries funding ( like the way europe gets americans tax money). their bravado would change overnight
go listen/watch atc video mishaps..near mishaps etc.
There’s an opening for a high paying school administrator position in Des Moines, Iowa. Little or no experience required.
A population of stellar scholars.
/sarc
Help me out here. How will many blacks, in particular, be able to provide evidence that their ancestors were enslaved? California was always a free state and, by most accounts, at most around 4,000 enslaved blacks were imported into the state (mostly during the Gold Rush) and a number of them subsequently were freed. I’d say the documentary evidence is spotty at best, which should pose quite a conundrum for those shilling for this bill. Would they just take someone’s word for it? Yeah, that would work out well–NOT.
“How will many blacks, in particular, be able to provide evidence that their ancestors were enslaved?”
“His name was Kunta. He called a banjo a ko…”
This highly illegal and highly unconstitutional. It’s unbelievable such a bill could even pass a US state congress. But here we are. Will Blondi put an end to this right quick?
Not sure this is explicitly unconstitutional on its face. Race was used to require Alabama to draw a second ‘majority minority CD’ just last year so yes, unfortunately, SCOTUS still allows race as a proxy. This program calls for a preference to be granted to descendants of chattel slaves under a set criteria. It’s entirely possible someone could qualify who presents as something other than ‘black’. Suppose a mulatto ancestor in 1860 who was able to ‘pass for white’ at emancipation, then lived and married ‘white’ as did their progeny since. Even ‘nation of origin’ wouldn’t necessarily be a bar b/c someone meeting the criteria could also be from a family that relocated to Canada or Liberia or wherever else. The irony of the d/prog once again setting a ‘one drop rule’ in 2025 is off the flipping charts.
That said this is utterly stupid, divisive and IMO evil race baiting/grifting. It’s gonna be impossible to accurately administer without strict adherence and all submitted documents subjected to rigorous scrutiny. Doing so would severely PO the folks clamoring for such thinly veiled racial set asides b/c they won’t qualify. Failure to scrutinize will expand the program to clear fraud. It’s a lose/lose for d/prog but that hasn’t stopped other nutty d/prog policy ideas.
Slavery was a good thing. In a “hit the guy on the head and take his stuff” economy, enslaving your defeated enemy was preferable to killing him. A win/win.
Slavery was inefficient because all your capital goes into defense, and it became obsolete with free markets and enforceable contracts, where a slave contributes more working in his own interest than in working for a master.
It lingered on a while as a custom but supported by undefendable ideas this time, like naturally subservient race, and then ended. It continues only in third world economies now. No rule of law, no contracts, etc.
As for money owed, after subtracting the difference between African and US standards of living, US blacks would be paying whites reparations.
Lol, so when was the US at war with West Africa?
Congratulations on making the most repulsive defense of American chattel slavery I’ve ever seen.
By restricting it to “descendants of American chattel slavery before 1900” it is a de facto race test. What degree of evidence will be required though? Does mere belief that your ancestor was an American chattel slave suffice? Does “establish direct lineage” require a family tree and government documentation, or does family mythology and gaps suffice? And what assessment of such claims will be made?
What of those Whites who were enslaved by Redskins? Are they excluded? Obviously modern sex slaves don’t get any protection, nor do those whose ancestor were enslaved by Muslims, or Romans or … so it’s not about restitution or aid for descendants of slavery, or a certain time period, but only those of a particular social group.
Actually, does the ancestor even need to have been a slave, or merely affected by it? Does “… subjected to American chattel slavery” actually mean enslaved, or does it simply mean Black? Note the b(5) criteria – “rendered military or civic service while subject to legal restrictions based on ancestry historically associated with slavery”. Free Blacks in the Union render military service so their descendants could claim these privileges too right? And what counts as civic service?
The more I look at the text the more it seems designed to be a race proxy thinly masquerading as justice.
“does family mythology and gaps suffice?”
Lizzie Warren, call your sachem!
“Actually, does the ancestor even need to have been a slave, or merely affected by it?”
More pointedly, what if the person is a descendant of a slave AND a slaveowner — like Kammy, or the illegitimate Jeffersons (now suspected of having been sired not by Thomas but by his brother)?
“The more I look at the text the more it seems designed to be a race proxy”
Hey, Boston did it with zipcodes, and has yet to be called on it.
We have deprived them of what they would have been… all princes and princesses of the Zulu Empire. Amazing how many hidden offspring of Shaka Zulu.
Reminds me of the wag who observed that all the people who claim to have visited past lives in regression were always royals or nobles — none of them were tanners or washerwomen.
Kinda like how the hard core commies always pushing for an end to capitalism seem to think they’re gonna be able to sit back and pursue their ‘artistic creativity’ while everyone else toils in the fields and in factories to provide food, consumer goods and electricity. These commie dreamers refuse to understand they’d be herded into trucks/trains for transport to the hard labor jobs with everyone else.
So true… many innocent and devout communists were rounded up by Stalin’s NKVD and sent to their deaths in gulags. Some believed that if only Papa Joe (not Brandon!) knew that they would be spared… or that they deserved punishment for not being better communists. All just figures on lists… quotas to build the Soviet state.
I am still waiting for the “Daily Wire”-produced epic biodrama, starring African-born Elon Musk as Shaka Zulu.
I have some jewish ancestry. It’s well documented that they were slaves in egypt for 400 years. Bingo! What degree should i study for?
brickmaking and basket weaving.
Also baking without yeast.
Is anyone NOT descended from slaves?
Hint: ancient slavery was not determined by race it was determined by who won the most recent battle.
Uh, Jews were never enslaved en masse in Egypt. Sorry to burst your fake victimhood bubble.
“See if you can follow the logic (I can’t).”
I can.
Plenty of people will remind you, if you ask them, that not all slaves were black, and in fact the first slave(s) in the future USA were white Irish.
It would be a hoot if their descendants could show up in California and represent.
And not all of the slaveholders were white. The first legal slave holder was an Angolan former indentured servant who refused to release an indentured servant of their own after their term was up and got a court to award him ownership of that person (now slave) in perpetuity.
GOP and conservatives leaders need to more emphatically hammer on the point that the vile, stupid and evil Dhimmi-crats are a corrosive and destructive party that caters exclusively to perennial malcontents; malignant narcissists; complainers; whiners; self-perceived, faux victims; perpetual grievance-mongers, ingrates and subversives.
This is a wretched party of constant and cancerous negativity and division, that is ideologically, intellectually and temperamentally incapable of articulating a positive, forward-looking agenda for the U.S., because the Party’s corrosive calling card is fomenting contrived notions of victimhood and grievance, for the political purpose of sowing perpetual discord and strife.
Someone should ask these black Dhimmi-crat leaders how much longer they plan to wallow in fallacious, corrosive and contrived notions of alleged victimhood. People are sick and tired of this excrement. The tide is turning.
The answer is forever. In fact the next generation of race grifters has already taken up the cry of racism. Note that the torch has not been passed as it had been next to impossible to pry it out of the current grifters sweaty hands and will continue to be impossible I suspect long after their dead, buried, and (hopefully) forgotten.
This is definitely a booby prize considering how crappy woke higher education in the People’s Democratic Republic of California has become. A degree in (say) Kill Filthy Zionist Pigs Studies is garbage whether it was a freebie or cost six figures since it makes you virtually unemployable outside of some menial low-pay Communist bureaucracy gig.
This is just reparations of another flavor that has been introduced after discovering it was too expensive for CA to give every black 1M or 10M or whatever ridiculous amount their ridiculous reparations committee proposed.
This seems to be a fairly clear-cut violation of the 14th amendment equal protection right.
I am curious as to how this can be researched with any hope of accuracy. I’ve been able to trace my caucasian American ancestry history largely through census records and marriage records to 1746.
However are there records of slaves accurate enough to do so? Certainly after the civil war, but before that? And can you make the link to records from before and afterwards?
Get with the program. Evidence is a white patriarchy construct specifically designed to keep People of Preferred Political Pigmentation oppressed.
(Do I really need a “/sarc”? Yeah, there are some with no sense of humor.)
Have they forgotten indentured servants who were dragged over here by their rich owners??? It is estimated that at least half a million came into this country between the 16th and 18th centuries with some reports of it still going on into the 18th century. Many never got released once their debt was paid. And many were not voluntary but duped into it or actually pressed ganged into it. I can trace one of my lines to an indentured servant for real. Should I be screaming reparations just because much of the founding of this country was built on the backs of indentured servants? No I shouldn’t because as S. E. Hinton’s novel says, “That was then. This is now.” And I already paid for DEI with a career job lay off in favor of a young person who did not take the job seriously and quit within 3 months. If I could have afforded a lawyer, I would have won hands down due to this heinous discrimination.
Doesn’t make sense. CA entered nation as non-slave state. Non-whites faced other forms of discrimination. But with black mayors of major cities in CA, despite being only 12% of population, this looks like bunk policy. I don’t think it would survive court challenge even with leftist appointed judges in CA. It also begs the question why blacks under-perform other non-white categories in academia.
Notice that descendants of the Chinese, who DID reside in California, and who WERE treated worse than dogs by actual Californians, don’t get jack.
What we have here is a black (the article said so) lawmaker trynna make a nayme phur his own sorry sewlph. Sad……
I say that should such a person as described WAS in reality descended in a line o previous slaves, and now 150 yeas later is still so incompetent as to NEED spayshull treatment, he is either too stupid or too lazy to truly benephit by this proposed bit o hocus pocus masquerading as :legislation.
Except for a few snobby schools, does anyone not automatically get accepted at most colleges these days as long as you have a high school diploma or GED?
Does this legislation was the diploma or GED requirement?