Washington Initiative 200 (1998): How the proponents’ policy narratives supported by academic data

Abstract

Washington states passed the Initiative 200 in 1998, which prohibited government from discriminating or granting preferential treatments on basis of sex, gender, color or nationality origins in public education, employment and contracting. The initiative was called Washington Civil Rights initiative, as the proponent stated that I-200 would make Washingtonians have more equal opportunities. In terms of race in public higher education, the opponents were worried that I-200 would end affirmative action and negatively impact the diversity of students. Analyzing the policy narratives of the I-200 proponent, there were four themes were used, strategically, to promote the initiative and persuade voters: I-200 was about government’s power in discrimination, preferential treatments created racial segregation, preferential treatments lowered the standard for college admission, and I-200 was not about to end affirmative action. Using quantitative data to examine the enrollment and graduation trends by race, the results show that there was an increase for the most of student of color groups at flagship universities in WA after I-200 passed, despite a short-term decrease right after 1998. The statistical analysis proves that the policy narratives of the proponents could have some truth in them, in terms of the effort to diversifying student body at universities which did not stop after I-200.