Assembly Speaker John Perez and Sen. Ed Hernandez, strong Latino backers of SCA5, were forced to propose a number of statewide task force meetings to reintroduce the amendment and perhaps rewrite parts that upset many Asian-American voters.
The backlash by Chinese-American activists against a measure aimed at restoring affirmative action in the admissions process at California’s public universities has set off political fisticuffs between ethnic groups accustomed to battling side-by-side.
In a state where Latinos — most of whom support SCA5, the proposed constitutional amendment — are about to become the largest ethnic group but where Asian-Americans take up nearly 40 percent of all University of California slots, the clash puts a spotlight on an evolving political landscape in which members of minority groups now overwhelmingly make up the majority of the state’s population.
There are even schisms within the Asian-American community, where anger is directed at Chinese-Americans who say they support affirmative action in hiring, but fear its application at elite UC schools such as UC Berkeley and UCLA, which now admit fewer than one in five in-state freshman applicants. They say the policy will take precious university spots from their children and give them to Latinos, blacks and students from other Asian and Pacific Islander groups who currently have difficulty gaining access to state schools.
Last year, 78 percent of Chinese-American students applying to a UC campus landed a coveted spot in the freshman class, according to fall 2013 data from UC. However, just 57 percent of Filipino-Americans and 48 percent of Pacific Islanders were admitted, rates similar to those of blacks and Latinos.
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