California Banned Affirmative Action in 1998 California Banned Affirmative Action in 1998. Since then Hispanic and black enrollment at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles dropped sharply after voters approved a statewide ban on affirmative action. Those numbers have not recovered, even as the state’s Hispanic population has grown. Go to the interactive graph for statistics. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/24/us/affirmative-action-bans.html?smid=pl-share