BAMN News Release
*****FOR RELEASE MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2010*****
For More Information, Contact:
Shanta Driver, Lead Counsel & National Chair, Coalition to
Defend Affirmative Action, Immigrant Rights and Integration
and to Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary 313-407-4865
Defend Affirmative Action, Immigrant Rights and Integration
and to Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary 313-407-4865
Monica Smith, BAMN Attorney 313-585-3637
Magally Miranda, Spanish Speaking, BAMN Organizer 213-826-4527
Latina/o, black, and Native American students seeking admission to the University of California (UC) are announcing today that they will file a federal lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California to overturn California’s Proposition 209 and restore affirmative action in the UC system. The suit asserts that Proposition 209 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The defendants in the suit are Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the UC Regents, and UC President Mark Yudof.
“It is an injustice and a social explosion waiting to happen for California to enforce a system of de facto segregation in which Latina/o, black, and Native American students, who comprise a fast-growing majority of California’s high-school students, are almost entirely shut out of this state’s most selective public universities,” said George Washington, a Detroit labor and civil rights attorney. “The level of segregation at UC-Berkeley relative to the state population is matched only in the Deep South. Proposition 209 cannot stand,” Washington said.
BAMN lawyers represented students in the successful legal defense of the Los Angeles and Berkeley school desegregation programs. Most importantly, BAMN represented the student-defendant interveners in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the University of Michigan Law School case in which affirmative action programs were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Driver and Washington are leading civil rights attorneys in defending affirmative action, desegregation programs, and voting rights cases. BAMN also defeated Ward Connerly's efforts to get anti-affirmative action ballot measures in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Missouri in 2008.
Shanta Driver, a Detroit-based labor and civil rights lawyer and National Chair of BAMN, will serve as lead counsel with George Washington. Ronald Cruz of Oakland, Monica Smith of Los Angeles, and Joyce Schon of Detroit are the other members of the legal team (see attached).
“This is a new day in California, with students demanding equal access and opportunity in what should be our public universities. We won’t sit in the back of the bus any longer,” said Issamar Camacho, a UC-Berkeley student who plans to apply to Berkeley Law School, a BAMN organizer and plaintiff.
Driver and Washington urge all students, all public officials, and all organizations that support affirmative action to join in this challenge to Proposition 209.
In 2007, Latina/o, black, and Native American students comprised 45.1% of California’s high school graduates. However, even after 13 years of efforts by the University of California to increase diversity, these groups comprised only 16.9% and 19.9% of new freshman admits at UC-Berkeley and UCLA respectively.
"Qualified Latina/o and black students are being rejected by the UC's in higher proportions than UC qualified white students," Driver said. "BAMN and the student plaintiffs are challenging Proposition 209 because Latina/o, black, Native American and other minority students are forced to labor under an unequal political procedure in seeking redress for discrimination in admissions. Every other group in the state of California, from veterans to rural students to disabled students to lesbian gay students have the right to ask the UC Regents to employ an admissions system that will increase their numbers in the UC student body. The only group legally barred from petitioning the Regents for a change in the admissions system to increase the admission of students from their communities are Latina/o, black, and other underrepresented minority students."
“Proposition 209 requires by law permanent de facto segregation in the UC system," Ronald Cruz, BAMN attorney and Boalt Law School alum. "None of the efforts in the UC's in the last 13 years have been able to change this reality. We will not allow our state to continue to be the legal, social, and political center of the New Jim Crow."
BAMN was founded in 1995 in response to the UC Regents' ban on affirmative action. In 2001, BAMN led a student movement that resulted in the UC Regents reversing their ban on affirmative action had been used as the model for Proposition 209. Last year, in Coral Construction Co. v. San Francisco regarding the use of affirmative action programs in contracting, Attorney General Jerry Brown stated that 209 is unconstitutional.
BAMN is leading the statewide campaign to get the UC Regents to create a UC-wide Dream Act. They are building for a mass mobilization to the UC Regents meeting on March 23-25 to win the creation of a UC-wide institutional financial aid program for undocumented students—a UC-wide Dream Act.
Shanta Driver, lead attorney and BAMN National Chair, emphasized that "while our legal arguments are irrefutable, whether or not we win this case is a political question—a question of social power. If the new civil rights movement can continue to grow and reach new heights, we can convince even the most conservative judges to restore affirmative action in California."
Magally Miranda, Spanish Speaking, BAMN Organizer 213-826-4527
Latina/o, black, and Native American students seeking admission to the University of California (UC) are announcing today that they will file a federal lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California to overturn California’s Proposition 209 and restore affirmative action in the UC system. The suit asserts that Proposition 209 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The defendants in the suit are Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the UC Regents, and UC President Mark Yudof.
“It is an injustice and a social explosion waiting to happen for California to enforce a system of de facto segregation in which Latina/o, black, and Native American students, who comprise a fast-growing majority of California’s high-school students, are almost entirely shut out of this state’s most selective public universities,” said George Washington, a Detroit labor and civil rights attorney. “The level of segregation at UC-Berkeley relative to the state population is matched only in the Deep South. Proposition 209 cannot stand,” Washington said.
BAMN lawyers represented students in the successful legal defense of the Los Angeles and Berkeley school desegregation programs. Most importantly, BAMN represented the student-defendant interveners in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the University of Michigan Law School case in which affirmative action programs were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Driver and Washington are leading civil rights attorneys in defending affirmative action, desegregation programs, and voting rights cases. BAMN also defeated Ward Connerly's efforts to get anti-affirmative action ballot measures in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Missouri in 2008.
Shanta Driver, a Detroit-based labor and civil rights lawyer and National Chair of BAMN, will serve as lead counsel with George Washington. Ronald Cruz of Oakland, Monica Smith of Los Angeles, and Joyce Schon of Detroit are the other members of the legal team (see attached).
“This is a new day in California, with students demanding equal access and opportunity in what should be our public universities. We won’t sit in the back of the bus any longer,” said Issamar Camacho, a UC-Berkeley student who plans to apply to Berkeley Law School, a BAMN organizer and plaintiff.
Driver and Washington urge all students, all public officials, and all organizations that support affirmative action to join in this challenge to Proposition 209.
In 2007, Latina/o, black, and Native American students comprised 45.1% of California’s high school graduates. However, even after 13 years of efforts by the University of California to increase diversity, these groups comprised only 16.9% and 19.9% of new freshman admits at UC-Berkeley and UCLA respectively.
"Qualified Latina/o and black students are being rejected by the UC's in higher proportions than UC qualified white students," Driver said. "BAMN and the student plaintiffs are challenging Proposition 209 because Latina/o, black, Native American and other minority students are forced to labor under an unequal political procedure in seeking redress for discrimination in admissions. Every other group in the state of California, from veterans to rural students to disabled students to lesbian gay students have the right to ask the UC Regents to employ an admissions system that will increase their numbers in the UC student body. The only group legally barred from petitioning the Regents for a change in the admissions system to increase the admission of students from their communities are Latina/o, black, and other underrepresented minority students."
“Proposition 209 requires by law permanent de facto segregation in the UC system," Ronald Cruz, BAMN attorney and Boalt Law School alum. "None of the efforts in the UC's in the last 13 years have been able to change this reality. We will not allow our state to continue to be the legal, social, and political center of the New Jim Crow."
BAMN was founded in 1995 in response to the UC Regents' ban on affirmative action. In 2001, BAMN led a student movement that resulted in the UC Regents reversing their ban on affirmative action had been used as the model for Proposition 209. Last year, in Coral Construction Co. v. San Francisco regarding the use of affirmative action programs in contracting, Attorney General Jerry Brown stated that 209 is unconstitutional.
BAMN is leading the statewide campaign to get the UC Regents to create a UC-wide Dream Act. They are building for a mass mobilization to the UC Regents meeting on March 23-25 to win the creation of a UC-wide institutional financial aid program for undocumented students—a UC-wide Dream Act.
Shanta Driver, lead attorney and BAMN National Chair, emphasized that "while our legal arguments are irrefutable, whether or not we win this case is a political question—a question of social power. If the new civil rights movement can continue to grow and reach new heights, we can convince even the most conservative judges to restore affirmative action in California."
Source: BAMN email
For a copy of the complaint, contact Donna Stern, donnaestern@gmail.com
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