California Asian Americans launched a bid Thursday to have the state Senate oppose a constitutional amendment they deem biased against them.

Many Asian Americans fear Senate Constitution Amendment No. 5 (SCA5), if passed, would allow public education institutions to give preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.

Daniel Deng, an attorney in the Los Angeles area, urged other Asian Americans to press California Senator Ed Hernandez to withdraw the legislation and California State Assembly Speaker John Perez not to put the bill on the agenda for discussion.

The affected communities started a petition on the White House website on Feb. 16, calling for rejection of SCA5 because it "is against the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution".

The legislation passed on Jan. 30 at the California Senate "would repeal some provisions of Proposition 209 and allow the State of California to discriminate against an individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin," according to the petition.

Asian Americans often needed to score hundreds of points higher than the applicants from other ethnic groups to have an equal chance of admission, the petition noted.

The Chinese community in California launched a campaign calling on state senators and assembly members to oppose the legislation. They also put a lot of pressure on the three Chinese American senators who voted for the bill.

On March 11, the three Chinese American senators, Ted lieu, Carol Liu and Leland Yee wrote to Senator Hernandez, asking him to hold SCA5 until he had an opportunity to meet with affected communities and attempt to build a consensus.

"As lifelong advocates for the Asian American and other communities, we would never support a policy that we believed would negatively impact our children," they said in a letter.

Hernandez has not responded to their appeal. But he has said a lot of misinformation was being circulated about SCA5 and the rhetoric being used against his proposed amendment was "scare tactics."

Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Los Angeles, the most prominent Asian American organization and a pioneer in fighting for equal rights, was reluctant to take a position when Chinese Americans first started their petition at the White House website.

The organization issued a statement Thursday, saying, "unfortunately, much of that debate has been driven by misinformation and misinterpretations about affirmative action programs in general and the legislative proposal in particular."

"And to a large extent, this debate misses the larger picture that all Californians must address together: the significant and long-term disinvestment in our state's public education system and its impact on all California students," the statement said.

It says reports in the media about Proposition 209, which greatly benefits Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI)'s admissions, "are misleading and contradicted by the evidence."

Many AAPI ethnic groups faced considerable educational disadvantages and had lower rates of college access and the SCA5 legislation would change the situation, the statement said.

A substantial body of social science showed AAPI students benefited from exposure to diversity in the classroom, it said. In addition, public higher education was a "positive sum game" investment that supported the hopes and aspirations of California's young people and also paid off economically.

"More opportunities for AAPIs will be created if we turn our collective focus toward reversing the tide of long-term higher education disinvestment that has eroded opportunities and threatens California's future global competitiveness," the statement said.