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After a weekend of protests, state and federal officials said on Monday they would monitor the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s investigation into the death of Robert Fuller, a black man who was found hanging from a tree near Palmdale City Hall. Local authorities said his death was most likely a suicide — a determination quickly disputed by family members.

According to The Victorville Daily Press, state officials are also working with the local authorities to investigate the death of Malcolm Harsch, a black man who was also found hanging from a tree, in Victorville. Family members are worried his death will also be called a suicide.

“It doesn’t sound right,” Mr. Harsch’s sister, Harmonie Harsch, told my colleague on Sunday.

[Read the latest updates on race and policing across the country.]

Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced his office would get involved in the probe into Mr. Fuller’s death during a virtual news conference in which he called for broad police reforms.

In Los Angeles, Black Lives Matter activists laid out in a presentation before the City Council why promises of reform here are insufficient.

And Gov. Gavin Newsom found himself defending the state’s reopening amid concerns that case counts rise.

“You have to recognize you can’t be in a permanent state where people are locked away,” he said.

The debate over how and whether to allow businesses to reopen has hinged in part on racial inequity; the virus is disproportionately sickening and killing black and Latino Californians. Those who work in low-paid service jobs are at particular risk.

The University of California’s Board of Regents unanimously voted to support restoring affirmative action in the state. California voters in 1996 passed Proposition 209, which changed the state’s constitution to ban affirmative action at state institutions. As CalMatters reported, reversing it would allow state schools to factor in prospective students’ race, ethnicity, gender and national origin in the admissions process.

And after thousands marched through Hollywood and West Hollywood to support black transgender people and to draw attention to violence against members of the black L.G.B.T.Q. community, the Supreme Court on Monday issued a ruling that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay and transgender people from discrimination at work.

The columnist Erika D. Smith wrote in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece that while the ruling was a positive development, it also highlighted how different the pace of change has been for the L.G.B.T.Q. community and how far there is to go for black Americans.

[See coronavirus cases across the state.]

Here’s what else to know today

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• The Supreme Court turned down an appeal from the Trump administration seeking to challenge California’s “sanctuary law.” [The New York Times]

• The man accused of being the “Golden State Killer” was expected to accept a plea deal that would allow him to avoid the death penalty. [The New York Times]

• It’s fire season. A blaze burning in the Pismo Beach area prompted evacuations and the closing of Highway 101. [The San Luis Obispo Tribune]

And finally …

Last week, my colleague Marie Tae McDermott asked college graduates about how they’re facing a bleak economy and an unsettled world. Here’s her dispatch after talking with some of them:

If the former students I talked to have one thing in common, it’s that they are all waiting — waiting for job offers, for acceptance letters and for things to return to normal.

“It feels like with everything else going on, graduation is an afterthought. Which is ironic, because I’ve always imagined graduation would be one of my most important life events,” said Louisa Nickerson.

Ms. Nickerson, 22, graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and will start a master’s program in the fall.

On Saturday, Ms. Nickerson said she had plans to exchange speeches with her roommates and to parade across their front lawn in caps and gowns.

“The canceled ceremony is the thing I feel most upset about. My mom passed away two years ago so the idea of walking across the stage as a way to honor her and commemorate my resilience was really important to me,” she said.

Graduate school is also in the works for Heidi Warde, 22, who graduated from the University of San Francisco. Ms. Warde’s school also opted to postpone its in-person commencement and she said the experience had been “both anticlimactic and disheartening.”

“Facing uncertain job prospects, I am thankful to know that I have coursework on the horizon, and am just trying to put off student loan worries,” she said.

Emiliano Gomez, 21, graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, and while he doesn’t particularly like graduation ceremonies, he would have liked to attend his own.

“I was looking forward to sitting in the temperate L.A. sun, in the Sunken Gardens, where I practiced handstands and walked my friend’s dog, for my English department graduation,” he said.

He’s still applying for jobs from his parents’ home in Marysville. He said a law firm in San Francisco went from scheduling an interview for April to saying, “Give us a call after you graduate and we’ll see.”

Kaiya Collins, 22, is now at home in Sacramento after leaving her student teaching program in Spokane, Wash., early because of the outbreak. The pandemic has thrown a wrench in her long-term plans.

“I am worried that this situation has left me ill prepared for my first year teaching,” she said. “I also feel like I never received any real closure on my time at school. I did not get to say a real goodbye to my friends or visit my favorite places in Spokane before I left.”

Ms. Collins, who graduated from Gonzaga University, was awarded a Fulbright grant to teach English in Taiwan, but she isn’t sure when she will be able to leave. The program, which is funded by the State Department, was postponed until January 2021 and there’s a chance that it might even be canceled.

“The uncertainty of it all is making it hard to plan for my future,” she said. As a credentialed teacher, she cannot find a job that will end in January. If the travel ban is extended and her Fulbright grant canceled, she is without a job for the school year.

Christian Fong, 22, who graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, said, “I think I have suppressed much of my feelings about graduating and have not properly processed many of my emotions.”

He has goals, he said, like moving to Washington, D.C., with his girlfriend, but he is content to keep busy applying for jobs and studying for the LSAT.

The pandemic has affected his worldview, but he remains optimistic.

“I think it is time to rethink what can and cannot be achieved,” he said. “If we can solve this pandemic, I think we can solve a lot of the world’s other problems, too.”

California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here and read every edition online here.

Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, went to school at U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.