This summer, it seemed the planets might be aligning to repeal California’s 24-year-old ban on affirmative action.

Widespread street protests over the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis had fueled a national reckoning with racism, discrimination and other social-justice problems. Poll after poll of public opinion showed rising acknowledgement of racial inequality and the need to address it.

The novel coronavirus was having a disproportionate impact on people of color.

And California was in a sustained demographic and political shift — more diverse, less conservative — away from what it was in 1996, when voters approved Proposition 209, a constitutional amendment outlawing racial or gender preferences in public employment, education and contracts.