My Responses to Hernandez's Letter

3/10/2014

Dear Senator Hernandez,

Thanks for letting us know that you could not attend tonight’s town hall meeting. We are a little bit disappointed, because on the one hand you promised “a full and reasoned debate of this measure”, on the other hand you tried hard to dodge the debate, not once, but twice. 

In your letter you claimed “there is a great deal of misinformation” regarding SCA5. Yet the biggest misinformation in the whole SCA5 drama came from your press release: “As a result (of prop 209), there has been a precipitous drop in the percentage of Latino, African American, and Native American students at California public universities”. All the available data, tables, charts and graphs from UC official web site work against your unfounded claim. Even your own witness before senate education committee, Mr. Trevino (UC Admissions Director) testified that “…The Latino numbers (before prop209) were system wide about 13.2%; they have increased now to over 26%...”

Your logic for restoring racial discrimination in California is mind-boggling. You proposed to achieve the noble goal of “equal opportunity” by means of racial discrimination. You suggested that to recruit “the best and brightest students”, we have to lower the entrance bar for certain group of people.

You are absolutely right that “Asian Americans still suffer discrimination at campuses”. But this is not because of Prop 209 as you claimed, but because politicians like you and your surrogates in California’s high education system have been trying your best to circumvent Prop 209 and suppress the presence of Asian-American students in the campus.

You are also right that SCA5 does not “alter the US. Supreme Court’s rulings that explicitly prohibit quotas”, because you dare not. Instead you are dancing at the boundary of the United States Constitution, and argued in your previous statements that “California’s public universities and colleges should have all tools at their disposal to ensure their campuses reflect the demographics of our state.” This is not outright “quota”, but it is no doubt the spirit of “quota”.

You said you are anticipating “ample opportunity for community input”. I think in the last few weeks you have already had enough community input, which is loud and clear: please kill this SCA5 measure, kill it now, and kill it forever.

Truly yours,

Henry Yang

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Senator Hernandez's Original Letter: