Legislator Clings to the Immutable in CA College Admissions

California legislators have yet again found a way to put federal law aside and make immutable characteristics a continued focus in college admissions. This movement is happening with the support and progression of Assembly Bill 7. 

The bill, written by Assemblyman Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles), states that California universities and private postsecondary educational institutions “may consider providing a preference in admissions to an applicant who is a descendant of slavery. This subdivision shall be implemented only to the extent that it does not conflict with federal law.”

The bill concludes by defining “descendant of slavery” to mean “an individual who can establish direct lineage to a person who, before 1900, was subjected to American chattel slavery.”

Immediately, the carefully crafted semantics of the bill should raise eyebrows. 

First, the decision to “consider providing a preference in admissions” falls completely under the authority of the university. This bill provides nothing more than a legal green light. It provides no framework, no tangible thought as to how this would be enacted. Would colleges only require a checkmark on an application to determine if someone is a descendant of slavery, or will they have a verification process, such as requiring proof of one’s genealogy through a test? This sounds like a fiasco either way. 

Second, a valuable question to ask is, “in what way could this conflict with federal law?” The definition of “descendant of slavery” leads to the answer. 

For recent historical context, the Supreme Court banned race-based admissions through the Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College decision on June 29, 2023. Affirmative action violates federal anti-discrimination laws, namely Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, because it actively discriminates due to one’s race.

While presenting his bill at the July 9 Senate Judiciary committee meeting, Bryan and his support witnesses insisted that providing preference to descendants of slavery is not the same as race-based judgments. 

Brandon Greene, the director of policy advocacy at the Western Center on Law and Poverty, insisted that “this bill is about lineage, not race.” 

Justin Ward, a representative with the California Association of Black Lawyers (CABLE), took the argument further by addressing the 2023 Supreme Court ruling. He claimed that “the spirit [of the ruling] is that you should not receive preferential treatment because of your race—but anybody could be a descendant of slavery—it just so happens that in the United States the overwhelming majority of slaves were from Africa—but Native Americans were enslaved here.” 

This argument, which tries so hard to separate American chattel slavery from race, will ultimately fail. Let’s return the the impetus for the American Civil War, straight from the words of the Vice President of the Confederate Party Alexander Stephens. Here are a few quotes from his  “Cornerstone Speech”:

• “The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our particular institution—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.”
• “Those ideas [of Jefferson and the Founders], however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of the races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”
• “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.”
• “With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place.”

The list goes on, but there should be no doubt that American chattel slavery, for which Americans fought and died to abolish, was race-based. 

Therefore, the conditions of one’s lineage as described in A.B. 7 are absolutely a proxy for race, and should be subject to the same anti-discrimination laws that found fault with affirmative action.

During the committee hearing, Bryan made another claim that proves that point: “We are not talking about breaking the idea of meritocracy. We are talking about the idea of proper repair and redress to relevel a playing field that was decisively created to be a disadvantage to a specific class of people and their descendants.” 

That “class of people” were dark-skinned people, and it was only through the spilled blood of the abolitionists and the continued fighting of freedom-loving Americans that equality under the law was restored. 

The last concern with Bryan’s bill is an ideological one. Looking at his last comment, he argues that this bill would not break the idea of meritocracy. I disagree.

College admissions are a zero-sum game. One’s gain is at another’s loss, which is why there were issues with race-based admissions in the first place. By that same logic, measuring someone’s worthiness by their immutable characteristics and conditions is not what true merit entails. 

Assemblyman Ryan made the point that a  “long history of legacy admissions, up until last year, favored students who come from wealthy and well-connected families.” Providing preference to students due to their wealth and connections is similarly unfair as providing preference to certain races or classes of people. Those born into poverty and those born into wealth have no control over that fact. Same as those who are descended from slaves, abusers, and criminals. At what point are people no longer bound to their past? At what point are they unable to move forward and take ownership of their life? 

This is how colleges should understand merit: 

Every person is born with a tool belt. Some have a fully stocked, premium status set of tools; some have the basic essentials; some may hardly have a tool that works. These tool belts are the immutable characteristics of the world. They cannot be changed. So what really matters is judging people by what they do with what they have. 

As a final question to Bryan’s logic, at what point is our heritage enough in our past not to be “systemically” affected by it? We all come from those who came before. How long will we be held accountable for what they did? Are we not able to move on and rise above?

I do not disagree with Bryan that forms of privilege and disparity are part of America’s story. They are most definitely part of the human experience. But he’s forgetting about the legacy of freedom that equalizes all of us. 

The promise of freedom is that we are no longer defined solely by our immutable characteristics but by the content of our character as determined by our choices. It’s what we choose to accomplish with the resources we have that forms our personhood. 

While presenting this bill on July 9, Bryan asserted, “Nowhere in the country has legislation this ambitious ever been introduced.” That could not be farther from the truth. Heritage and lineage are important, but after how many generations will this “systemic disadvantage” be rectified? It just makes no sense.