Are Ballot Initiatives a Good Way to Make Education Policy? The Case of Affirmative Action

Abstract

Are direct democratic ballot initiatives a just way to make education policy, especially when the policy disproportionately affects members of underrepresented groups? This is the broad question taken up in this article, related in particular to how education policy decided through the ballot initiative process affects minorities. The authors use philosophical inquiry to examine the fairness of education policy decisions being made by voters via the ballot initiative process. The primary purpose of this article is to shed light on an underexamined issue within education policy analysis, the phenomenon of education-related initiatives that focus on dismantling historic civil rights policies.

Notes

1. Proponents call these civil rights initiatives, but herein we primarily use the initiative numbers in an effort not to perpetuate what we feel is a misleading characterization.

2. Once passed, state ballot initiatives generally override court decisions, especially when they amend a state's constitution. A successful legal challenge to a ballot initiative would negate this effect. Ballot initiatives override court decisions because those decisions only uphold the legality of affirmative action, but do not require it. Therefore, states can still prohibit it.

3. For Michigan, underrepresented minority students include African American, Latino, and Native American students.

4. We restrict our arguments here to ballot initiatives on education policy. Of course, there are myriad other issues that may legitimately be brought to voters via ballot initiative.

5. In Michigan, the preamble to the ballot language did include the phrase affirmative action.