In the last few years, college and university systems nationwide have implemented sweeping reforms to placement and course sequences to rectify systemic inequities affecting incoming students. Many of these reforms acknowledge that standardized placement tests create false distinctions between "prepared" and "underprepared" students, and that most students deemed "underprepared" by placement tests are in fact successful in college-level courses. A growing and predictable backlash is arising as these reforms change the demographic makeup of college classrooms. Using local data to examine, characterize, and theorize the backlash against California's recent legislative reform, AB 705, this article identifies corequisite support courses as a likely target for future backlash and offers suggestions for framing conversations around corequisite models and placement reform so as to generate meaningful, good-faith discussion while minimizing reactionary attempts to return to inequitable placement and curricular practices.