California Democrats Are Coming for Your Kids’ Schools. Again.

California voters passed Proposition 209 in 1996. Banned racial preferences in public employment, education, and contracting. Clear as language gets. Then in 2020, Sacramento put Prop 16 on the ballot to repeal it. Voters said no again, 57% to 43%, in a state that went 64% for Biden the same year. That wasn’t a close call. That was a mandate.

Sacramento’s response: try again.

ACA-7, introduced by Assembly Member Jackson on February 13, 2025, has already cleared the California Assembly on a strict party-line vote. Every Democrat who voted was for it. Every Republican against it. Now it moves to the Senate, where it needs a 2/3 supermajority to land on the November ballot.

What ACA-7 Actually Does

This bill isn’t a full repeal of Prop 209. It’s more surgical than that, and in some ways more cynical.

The bill text amends Section 31 of Article I to limit the equal-protection prohibition to “public employment, higher education admissions and enrollment, and public contracting.” That sounds like it preserves protections. It doesn’t. By removing K-12 education from the list, it opens the door to race-based preferences in every California public school below college level. Gifted and talented program admissions. College financial aid. Faculty hiring. Any K-12 policy.

This is the part that should make every parent in California stop and read the bill. The gifted programs your kid tested into, competed for, earned a spot in, those can now use race as a factor. That’s not equal protection. That’s the opposite.

Three Times and Counting

California Democrats have attempted to gut Prop 209 three times now. SCA5 in 2014. Prop 16 in 2020. ACA-7 now. They will keep trying until someone makes them stop.

The 2014 attempt, SCA5, was killed by organized opposition from Asian American communities. The Silicon Valley Chinese Association’s Crystal Liu gave a speech that year that became famous in civil rights organizing circles. It’s still being circulated today, with “SCA5” replaced by “ACA7,” because the argument hasn’t changed. The bill hasn’t changed. Only the number has.

Prop 16 in 2020 was the most direct test: put the question straight to voters. The result was a landslide rejection. The Equal Rights For All PAC documented what happened: “We beat them back when they tried this two years ago. But they are at it again.” Their words. Then the 2024 version of ACA-7 was abandoned before it reached the ballot when Senate pressure mounted. Garry celebrated that outcome at the time. It was good news. For about 18 months.

There’s a pattern here that goes beyond ACA-7. Sacramento has a documented habit of ignoring voter mandates. Prop 36 passed overwhelmingly in 2024 and then lawmakers moved to defund it. Prop 209 passed in 1996 and lawmakers have tried three times to hollow it out. The voters’ verdict isn’t treated as the final word. It’s treated as an obstacle to route around.

Meanwhile, a group called Students Against Racial Discrimination filed a federal lawsuit in February 2025 alleging that UC was already discriminating against Asian American and white applicants in violation of Prop 209 and the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The lawsuit accuses UC of using “holistic” review as a mechanism to move away from objective criteria toward racial outcomes. ACA-7 would make the practices they’re being sued over legal.

Equal Protection Is Not Negotiable

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Garry Tan

@garrytan

Equal protection and treatment under the law is a basic right and it’s amazing we keep having to defend it, but we will

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Tony Guan

@ECalifornians

The 2026 version of ACA-7 is a stark example of regressing on civil rights. The historic American Civil Rights movement fought tirelessly, often at great personal cost, for a just society where people are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. …

Mar 3, 2026

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I’m not sure when California Democrats became the party of pro-racial discrimination, but I think we should stop this. Back in February, when ACA-7 was clearing Assembly committees, the pattern was already clear: every Democrat voted yes, every time, in every committee.

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Tony Guan

@ECalifornians

The 2026 version of ACA-7 is a stark example of regressing on civil rights. The historic American Civil Rights movement fought tirelessly, often at great personal cost, for a just society where people are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Protect equal treatment: reject ACA-7. @SenBenAllen @Scott_Wiener @senatorumberg @SenHenryStern @sensusanrubio #NoACA7 #Stop #ACA7 #Protect209

Mar 3, 2026

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Tony Guan puts it plainly: the Civil Rights movement fought, often at great personal cost, for a society where people are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. ACA-7 is a vote against that. Not a vote against one interpretation or another. A direct vote against the principle.

The strongest organized opposition to ACA-7 has consistently come from Asian American communities who see it clearly: this bill targets their kids in gifted programs. That’s not paranoia. The ERFA PAC’s analysis documents exactly which programs are in scope and why they’re the specific targets of the bill. When you strip away the legislative language, what remains is a mechanism to let race determine which kids get into advanced programs in California public schools.

Equal protection and treatment under the law is a basic right. It’s amazing we keep having to defend it, but we will.

Stop It in the Senate

The bill needs a 2/3 supermajority in the Senate. That’s the chokepoint. Democrats hold the chamber, but not every Democrat is a reliable yes on a bill this controversial. The Senate vote is where this ends.

The senators who need to hear from you: Scott Wiener (District 11, San Francisco), Ben Allen (District 24), Thomas Umberg (District 34), Henry Stern (District 27), Susan Rubio (District 22).

The Equal Rights For All PAC built a one-button email tool, developed with AI using @openclaw, that auto-fills an email to your senator opposing ACA-7. As of March 3, 166 emails had been sent. That number needs to be orders of magnitude higher.

Archived tweet

One button tool (build by AI with @openclaw ) to email your senator: https://t.co/BEfRZ6ypPP

Tony Guan @ECalifornians March 03, 2026

We stopped this in 2024 because Senate pressure made it politically costly to proceed. The 2/3 threshold is the firewall, and it’s held before. Same playbook works now. Go to erfapac.com/aca7-2026, find your senator, and send the email. Keep racism illegal in California. Voters said so in 1996, and again in 2020. Make sure the Senate remembers that.