Introduction

	For the past three years Californians have debated the hypothetical value of affirmative action. At times the debate has seemed like an academic exercise, as we argued over terms like “preferences,” “quotas,” “set-asides,” “goals” and “timetables.” But now that Gov. Wilson has identified 31 state-funded programs that he proposes to eliminate or curtail, purportedly in order to comply with Proposition 209, we must examine these programs, and hear from the real people who benefit from them. The pages that follow profile the affirmative action programs slated for elimination or revision, and eight Californians whose lives were enriched by such programs. They show that affirmative action means inclusion, not exclusion. It means insuring that American Indian students, Latina farmworkers, the sons and daughters of African American laborers, the grandchildren of Chinese immigrants and others are included when the school doors are open, when public money is spent to build our roads, and when teachers are chosen for our schools and colleges. Despite our best efforts, discrimination has not been eliminated from American public life. Unintended stereotyping, marginalization and the operation of old boys networks have resulted in vastly unequal opportunities both for minorities and women. The programs described in this booklet help to remedy discrimination by reaching out to the excluded, giving them an opportunity to compete. These programs don’t violate Proposition 209-they give no preferences to anyone. But by bringing new faces to the table they give life-altering opportunities to thousands of Californians, permitting them to reach for dreams otherwise beyond their grasp. Eleven of the threatened programs are in education. They range from the tiny Science, Mathematics and Technology Teacher Pipeline Program, which provides after-school and weekend science and math enrichment programs for elementary and high school students in Riverside, Visalia, San Marcos and the Oakland area, to the California Student Opportunity and Access Program (Cal-SOAP), whose nine regional centers around the state provide SAT training, academic preparation for college and college counseling. The California Academic Partnership Program has provided more than 130,000 K-12 students with mentoring through partnerships with California businesses. Although the programs have different approaches and serve different regions, all have this in common: they exclude no one based on race, ethnicity or gender. What, then, makes them affirmative action programs? Each is designed to meet the needs of minorities and other disadvantaged students, and each makes special efforts to reach out to, and serve, these students.
	Listen to 13-year-old Amber Noel, who credits the American Indian Early Childhood Education Program (ECE)-a program Gov. Wilson apparently wants to shut down-with her success in school and her plans to become a physician. The program has helped reduce the high school dropout rate for students from her Yuba Feather school from 80 percent in the 1980s to 30 percent today, by providing American Indian children with a combination of computer training, peer tutoring and an understanding of traditional Indian crafts and culture. The program is open to all students in the community, and many non-Indians attend, but it is designed to meet the cultural and educational needs of the Indian students, who too often are viewed in their classrooms through the lens of TV stereotypes. No one in her San Joaquin Valley high school expected Dr. Raquel Arias to go to university. In fact, a tireless college recruiter looking for talented Latino students was told by Dr. Arias’ former high school counselor, “Our Mexicans don’t want to go to college, they want to stay here.” With the assistance of a number of outreach and mentoring programs, Dr. Arias broke through the stereotypes, and is now a top surgeon recently appointed by Governor Wilson to the Medical Board of California. Cecelia Blanks, an African American mother of four who was trying to make ends meet through dead-end jobs, was inspired by workshops of the Black Women’s Leadership Conference to earn a master’s degree and qualify for her current job as a lecturer at Mira Costa Community College. Banks credits Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS), another threatened affirmative action program. As a college counselor, she now inspires others who, she says, “look like me” to continue their education. Nine of the threatened programs provide affirmative action opportunities for women-owned and minority-owned businesses at the state and/or local level. These programs have been successful in bringing new faces to the table, by breaking down the traditional networks that have excluded women-owned and minority-owned businesses from government contracts.
	Contractors must make “good-faith efforts” to notify these formerly excluded businesses of upcoming state-financed projects. Given the opportunity to bid, they have submitted low bids and done good work, to the benefit of the general contractor, the contracting agency and the taxpayer. For Lisa Campbell, a self-described hard-working Republican from Chino Hills, these contracting programs permitted her to build an environmental cleanup business employing 150 people. But when Governor Wilson began his efforts to end affirmative action, the bids slowed, and when Proposition 209 passed, the phone stopped ringing. We don’t have to take your bid, she was told, there’s no more good-faith effort. Campbell is proud of the fact that she was the low bidder on every contract she secured, but without requests to bid or notification of upcoming jobs, she has no opportunity to underbid her competition and prove her qualifications. The only way to keep open business opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs like Lisa Campbell is to keep track of discrimination in contracting, especially where large public dollars are spent. The Legislature has required state and local agencies to keep statistics on the utilization of women- and minority-owned businesses. Yet, the statutes providing for this record-keeping are among those that the Governor proposes to repeal. If this data is no longer recorded, it will be much harder to track the discrimination that still exists. The remaining threatened programs provide for affirmative action in employment, including outreach and recruitment programs for the state civil service and state-regulated union/management apprenticeship programs. Of the 900-plus elevator construction and service workers in the three-state region that includes much of California, for example, only about a dozen are women. But without affirmative action, says elevator construction worker L.J. Dolin, there wouldn’t be any. Dolin graduated first in her class of 200 at the Army mechanics school at Fort Jackson, but she spent five years trying to get a foot in the door, and several more trying to get in enough hours to reach journey level.
	In addition to these personal profiles and detailed descriptions of these valuable programs, we have also included a legal and public policy discussion explaining why affirmative action programs that avoid using preferences are still necessary and still fair. We would be remiss if we did not pay tribute to the extraordinary courage of the individuals profiled in these pages. They are speaking out at a time when the climate in this state has become so hostile to programs ensuring equal opportunity that many individuals-and, indeed, many of the programs-are fearful of defending them. When Martin Luther King, Jr. lobbied for affirmative action programs in the 1960s, he may have never envisioned the vital recruitment, outreach, counseling and mentoring that make up affirmative action in the 1990s. In these pages you will read how valuable these programs are to open the doors of opportunity to all of the people in our state. It is up to all of us to ensure that as individual Californians like those profiled in this booklet reach for the American dream, it not be snatched from their grasp. David B. Oppenheimer Associate Professor of Law Golden Gate University San Francisco