Supporting Policy Advocacy: CTF's Involvement in Proposition 54

Considered an effort to weaken Affirmative Action, Proposition 54 became a ballot initiative in 2003. It sought to prohibit state or local governments from collecting and using information on an individual’s race, ethnicity, color, or national origin for the purposes of public education, public contracting, public employment or other government operations. It alarmed many community-based organizations that rely on such information to advocate for social change. Yet, few knew much about the proposition.

“We had to fight Prop 54,” says CTFC Board member Anni Chung, “because without the data, how do you know which community suffers the most?

“The issue was so central to our work and that of our grantees,” says CTFC Board Chairman Jacquelyn Brand. “Being unable to gather data, to just be ignorant about information, would be a terrible threat to our effectiveness.”