| Abstract: | Proposition 209 was the affirmative‐action initiative placed on the 1996 general election ballot that asked California voters to determine the future of ethnically targeted state programs. Simultaneous logistic regression was used to examine the extent to which symbolic, traditional, and other racial attitudes, such as the belief that things were better when Blacks and Mexican Americans were segregated from Whites, the belief that minority groups were getting more than their share of resources, and the belief that minority groups were no longer discriminated against were related to support for Proposition 209. The results indicate that symbolic racism and the belief that minorities were accessing more than their share of resources provided stronger explanations for support of the initiative than did other sentiments. |
