Californians can reverse the state's affirmative action ban. Will they? | John Wilkens

<p>This summer, it seemed the planets might be aligning to repeal California’s 24-year-old ban on affirmative action.</p><p>Widespread street protests over the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis had fueled a national reckoning with racism, discrimination and other social-justice problems. <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_060220/" target="_blank">Poll</a> after <a href="https://www.voterstudygroup.org/nationscape" target="_blank">poll</a> of public opinion showed rising acknowledgement of racial inequality and the need to address it.</p><p>The novel coronavirus was having a disproportionate impact on people of color.</p><p>And California was in a sustained demographic and political shift — more diverse, less conservative — away from what it was in 1996, when voters approved Proposition 209, a constitutional amendment outlawing racial or gender preferences in public employment, education and contracts.</p>