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NEWS > Press Room > Press Releases >
September 24, 2007
Attention: reporters and editors covering affirmative action, civil rights, gender and the law
Contact: Susan Gluss, media relations director, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law 510.642.6936, sgluss@law.berkeley.edu
WHAT: Release of A Vision Fulfilled? The Impact of Proposition 209 on Equal Opportunity for Women Business Enterprises, a new report by the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice (HCSJ), University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
WHEN: Tuesday, September 25, 10:00 a.m.
WHERE: University of California, Berkeley School of Law, first floor, Goldberg room. Entrance on Bancroft St., at the intersection of Piedmont and Bancroft.
WHY: In 1996, California voters passed the California Civil Rights Initiative, or Proposition 209, which eliminated affirmative action in state public education, contracting and employment. This report documents the 11-year impact of Prop 209 on Women Business Enterprises (WBE) seeking public contracts in the state's transportation construction industry.
WHO: Monique W. Morris, Senior Research Fellow for the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice and former Director of the Discrimination Research Center; Aileen C. Hernandez, Business Owner and Chair of the California Women's Agenda; Mary Louise Frampton, Director of the Henderson Center for Social Justice; Christopher Edley, Jr., Dean of UC Berkeley School of Law.
RESULTS
The Henderson Center examined the impact of Proposition 209 on businesses that were certified by Caltrans as Women Business Enterprises (WBEs). The results are startling:
- Real dollars awarded to women-owned businesses fell dramatically;
- A significant number of women-owned companies went out of business entirely;
- Barriers to bidding on projects rose as women were squeezed out of the "good old boy" network.
California's transportation construction industry is the source of over $2 billion in public contracts each year. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is the largest granting agency for transportation construction statewide and has tremendous capacity to increase the wealth and employment opportunities among California's diverse population.
The report recommends a number of steps Caltrans and other state agencies can take to eliminate race and gender bias in public contracting.
The research began under the direction of Monique W. Morris at the Discrimination Research Center (DRC) and continued when Morris joined HCSJ in March 2007. A Vision Fulfilled is the second in a series of reports on the impact of Prop 209. The first report, Free to Compete, examined the impact on minority businesses.
Established in 1999, HCSJ fosters creative scholarship that examines the law through a lens of social justice, and works in partnership with communities to provide education to the general public.
For more info: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/csj/
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