Dive Brief:
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Monday that would have allowed colleges to give an admissions advantage to applicants who descended from people who were enslaved in the U.S.
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In a Monday memo explaining his veto of AB 7, Newsom called the bill unnecessary, writing that colleges “already have the authority to determine whether to provide admissions preferences like this one.”
- Newsom's veto comes at a time when colleges are under immense pressure from the Trump administration over their diversity and admissions practices, including through a proposed government compact sent to nine colleges that would give priority for federal research funding in exchange for major policy changes. Trump appeared to extend that invitation to all colleges in a Sunday post on Truth Social.
Dive Insight:
A White House official told Higher Ed Dive on Tuesday that the federal government has not proactively reached out with the compact offer to all universities but would not turn away interested colleges.
The compact directs colleges to forgo considering race and ethnicity in admissions — which is already prohibited nationwide per the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the practice — along with proxies for those factors. It also would compel colleges to require standardized tests for undergraduate applicants.
“For those Institutions that want to quickly return to the pursuit of Truth and Achievement, they are invited to enter into a forward looking Agreement with the Federal Government to help bring about the Golden Age of Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” Trump said in Sunday's post.
The University of Southern California is one of nine research institutions asked by the Trump administration earlier this month to sign the compact, while the nearby University of California, Los Angeles is under threat of a heavy federal financial penalty. The Trump administration has demanded that UCLA pay $1 billion to settle allegations of civil rights violations.
Newsom has vocally opposed both the UCLA demand and the compact. He vowed to pull state funding from any California institution that signs the compact, and he threatened to sue over the $1 billion demand, calling it “extortion.”
California Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, the Democrat who authored AB 7, described Newsom’s veto of the bill as “more than disappointing,” according to a recent statement shared with media.
“While the Trump Administration threatens our institutions of higher learning and attacks the foundations of diversity and inclusivity, now is not the time to shy away from the fight to protect students who have descended from legacies of harm and exclusion,” Bryan said.
AB 7 drew opposition from groups that argued it would conflict with the Supreme Court ruling against race-conscious admissions and California’s decades-old prohibition against affirmative action at the state’s public colleges.
The UC Student Association had supported the bill, according to a September legislative analysis.
“AB 7 is a critical step toward equity and restorative justice, one that acknowledges and seeks to correct historical and systemic barriers that have impacted descendants of slavery, a lineage that has disproportionately hindered college access for African-American communities and Black students across generations due to the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow segregation laws and institutionalized racial discrimination,” the group said.
The bill would have allowed colleges to give preferential admissions treatment to applicants who could “establish direct lineage” with someone who was subjected to American slavery. However, the legislative analysis raised questions about how colleges would determine eligibility, including what documents applicants would provide and how colleges would verify their authenticity.
