Ripples of Affirmative Inaction in California

Into America

Nearly 30 years ago, California voters approved Prop 209, which banned affirmative action for the state’s public universities. For some elite schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA, Black student enrollment plummeted, changing the campuses for decades to come. On Into America, we’re going back to Cali to get a glimpse of what life on campus was like during the golden age of Black student enrollment, how the campus responded to threats to end affirmative action, and what the eventual end of the program meant for generations of Black students.

Trymaine Lee speaks with former Cal student Quamé Love, along with others who have walked the campus over the years, and he’s joined by UCLA history and education professor Eddie R. Cole for context on what the Supreme Court’s decision means at this moment in the nation’s history.

In this episode, you can also get a sneak peak of actress Alfre Woodard reading the entirety of Justice Brown Jackson’s dissent in the recent Supreme Court case over affirmative action for our friends over at The Beat.

And an update from Into America: we’re going to be stepping away for a few months to work on a new reporting project. So we’ll be back in your feeds with a special season of the show shortly. But if you miss us before then, why not re-listen to a few of our favorite episodes below?

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For more:

• Street Disciples: The Concrete Jungle
• Into “I Have a Dream”
• The Power of the Black Vote: Taking Back the Classroom