BALLOT: Backers look for legal way to tackle problems

Would it bring back racial preferences in admissions? Unclear. Will it permit new race-based programs that clear federal law and court precedent? Another unknown.

The point

As with the 2020 ballot measure, the current effort is meant to compensate for the myriad effects historical prejudice has had on specific groups of people, such as housing discrimination or police profiling. It’s a concept known as equity: making up for past racial injustices by using race as a factor in programs that can help undo those injustices.

The measure is an “acknowledgment that Prop. 209 was a failed experiment,” said Assemblyman Corey Jackson, a D-Perris who’s the author of the am,endment.

He wants state law relaxed so that lawmakers and state agencies can directly support Black and other marginalized state residents — such as by deploying public funds to address the much higher death rates of Black women giving birth or the lower life expectancy rates of Black and Native American people — while still work- ing within some of the confines of Proposition 209.

The amendment’s focus on identity groups is “making sure that there are interventions that are specifically made for them to help solve the problems that are unique to them,” Jackson said.

The emphasis on using academic evidence is an attempt to persuade voters that state programs using race as a factor wouldn’t be subjective but would have to meet a high research bar to waive Proposition 209, Jackson said.

That data is also relevant in other ways. Frequently, the groups with poorer life outcomes have small populations. For example, Black and Native American residents combined make up less than a tenth of the state’s population. That means broader programs meant to help low-income Californians may still miss the specific needs of relatively small communities, including in higher education.

Using research-backed approaches to fund state programs is a way to ensure those smaller groups also get help, Jackson said.

That equity framework, however, is at odds with what backers of Proposition 209 sought — equality.

“If passed, this

MURAL: Students take pride in hard work

From Page A1

School District American Indian Parent Committee.

“Representation, cultural pride, empowerment, and awareness of our Native heritage. I think it’s meaningful that the mural is a catalyst for creating dialogue, since that is something that’s needed for Native families in the educational system.”

“The whole purpose of the mural is to prevent indigenous erasure,” said Mike Duncan, Founder and Executive Director of Native Dads Network. “Specifically of Patwin people from this area. Number two, I believe it’s super important for future generations to understand that we’ve been here for thousands of years and that they get to be part of the link that leads to a future generation of healing. Involving the youth of this project and inviting the community out to participate is super important. It brings recognition. It gives them a sense of pride, a sense of culture, of sustainability, and a sense of pride of being indigenous to this land.”

Native American students from the Woodland area in grades 7 to 12 designed and painted the 60 x 30 foot mural in just five days with support from the Hope Through Art Foundation.

“It was tough at first,” said Joseph White, one of the student artists. “I wasn’t really sure about the process of it, but as we did the scribble grid and as they took a picture of it and turned down the transparency, it really showed that it’s not that much of a big project that we thought it was. If we have the right amount of teamwork, the right amount of communication, and the right amount of team-building, we could get this done. Now it’s done and everyone is proud of it.”

“It was a lot of hard work,” said Younique Wethington, a student artist who graduated from Woodland High School this year. “But I think the project really showed me that hard work can get things done.”