Legislative leaders in California have shelved a measure that would have allowed the state's public universities to consider race and gender during the admissions process has been shelved, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said he was sending SCA5 - a proposed amendment that would "restore racial and gender preferences for public university admissions - to a special task force for further study," The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Perez reportedly made the announcement after it became clear that the proposed bill did not have enough democratic support to win two-thirds of the Assembly vote, which is needed to send it to the ballot.

Democratic State Senator Edward Hernandez authored the legislation as a response to the decrease in enrollment of students of color within the University of California system.

Three Asian American state senators had urged Perez to "put the brakes on the effort," because they fear the ban on affirmative action in college admissions could hurt their children's chances of getting into the University of California system. They feared that giving preferences to African American and Latino students would hurt Asian students' chances of getting accepted.

Perez said the task force would focus on the question, "Where do we go as a state on college admissions?"

After state voter's approved Proposition 209 in 1996 - a measure that prevents state institutions from giving preferential treatment to groups in employment, contracting, and education - Black and Latino enrollment dropped sharply at the University of California, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.