Skin Color Act 5 -- Michael Hunsweck


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Skin Color Act 5 -- Michael Hunsweck
March 4, 2014

This year, the California State Senate passed SCA 5, which has been correctly dubbed "Skin Color Act 5". This bill would repeal provisions of an anti-discrimination law, Proposition 209, which voters passed in 1996. The main effect of SCA 5 would be to allow the University of California system to start actively discriminating against students on the basis of race.

The goal of SCA 5 is clear. It is to cap Asian enrollment at California's universities. Supporters of SCA 5 note that Asians are disproportionally over-represented on college campuses, making up 36% of UC admissions while only being 15% of the population. You would think that the academic achievement of a racial minority, who got there solely based on merit, would be a success story worth celebrating. But apparently the Democrat Party doesn't think so.

The Democrat supermajority passed SCA 5 on a strictly party-line vote, 27-9. Not one single Republican voted in favor of it. All 27 yes votes were Democrats. It is clear that the Democrat Party's approach to inequality has nothing to do with lifting up those at the bottom and helping them succeed. But rather, it is to punish those at the top and tear them down. The Democrat Party has sought for a long time to punish achievement by equalizing outcomes. But this time, they have gone too far. This is going to come back and bite them.

Martin Luther King Jr. said he dreamed that his kids would "one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character". But the Democrat Party's attack on California's Asian minority, which is only 15% of the population, is a blow to King's dream. Chief Justice John Roberts got it right when he said, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." If the Democrats persist in their support of racial discrimination, they will quickly find themselves on the wrong side of history. And the fact that SCA 5 even got this far is going to be a dark cloud over the Democrat Party for a long time to come.

~Michael Hunsweck