Today, reparations in California and the affirmative action ruling coincide
In case you haven't heard, the Supreme Court ruled to drastically restrict the consideration of race in admissions to America's most selective schools, which California also banned nearly 30 years ago.
Task force chair Kamilah Moore says the report will include “numerous policy prescriptions in the areas of education."
"The only note I’ll say," she added, "is one of the recommendations is to provide free college tuition at public colleges and universities, for descendants of slaves, not for all Black people, but for descendants of slaves. So to that end, that recommendation remains unaffected by SCOTUS decision today because it’s not a race based admissions preference."
Reparations task force member says great-great grandfather was enslaved
Amos C. Brown, a renowned civil rights leader and a member of the task force, said his great great-grandfather was enslaved in Franklin County, Mississippi, in 1821.
Brown also referred to slavery as a “crime [that] was done against the humanity of Black people,” and reiterated his support for reparations during the news conference before the final set of recommendations are released.
A hefty report
California's final report, chock full of history of Black people in the state and all its recommendations for redress, will come in at 1,200 pages. That's more than double the midpoint report the task force issued last year.
Follow live coverage of reactions to the affirmative action ruling from the Supreme Court and more.
Task force members suggests Supreme Court read their report
After two years of work, the California Reparations Task Force releases its final report today. Their hope is that their findings will set the groundwork for reparations throughout the country.
Task force member Cheryl Grills said the Supreme Court should read the report.
“The Supreme Court has decided that affirmative action is not appropriate for this country. I would encourage the Supreme Court to read the intro report,” Grills said.
“I would encourage them to read the final report and to understand that the legacy of enslavement and the ongoing harms are with us to this very day. And so this country is disingenuous. First, they use race to exclude us and now they’re refusing to use race to include us.”
The task force added that it had prepared in advance for the ruling from the Supreme Court and it wouldn’t affect the report’s findings.
Meanwhile in Congress
Federal lawmakers are pursuing their own efforts to redress the effects of slavery and the generations of discrimination that has followed for Black Americans.
While calls for reparations in America date to slavery’s abolition in the 1860s, in 1989 Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., introduced what would become H.R. 40 to study slavery, its effects and appropriate remedies. Conyers introduced the legislation at the beginning of each congressional session for nearly three decades (he died in 2019, two years after leaving Congress).
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, has taken up the mantle in the House of Representatives by introducing an updated version of H.R. 40. It would establish a commission to study reparations and consider a national apology and other redress for the institution of slavery, as well as subsequent racial and economic discrimination against African Americans.
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., introduced the latest federal effort to support reparations last month with H.R. 414, the Reparations Now Resolution, which seeks to advance reparations at the federal, state and local levels.
California's Secretary of State asks 'Why not?' regarding reparations for state
California’s Secretary of State Shirley Weber said at a press conference for the reparations task force this morning that “the work has been difficult” to get to the point where the group is today in its efforts to recommend reparations for the state.
Weber also said that she has been asked why California is being considered for reparations, to which she responded, “Why not?” Reparations are due to African Americans affected by slavery, she added, whether people are from the south, like in Mississippi, or the west, like California.
The interim report from last year documented a history of ‘moral and legal wrongs’
Over 13 chapters and about 500 pages, the interim report’s authors recount the “moral and legal wrongs the American and Californian governments have inflicted upon their own Black citizens and residents.”
It noted how slavery and subsequent discrimination have exposed Black communities to racial terror and political disenfranchisement, left them with inferior outcomes in health and wealth building, and relegated them to segregated neighborhoods and schools.
The report also highlights that historical injustices have helped fuel modern-day disparities, noting that California’s stagnant rates of Black homeownership, racial disparities in police arrests and use of force, and a large gap in the average wealth of Black and white families are at least in part the results of decades of social engineering designed to exclude Black Californians from gaining access to the same political, financial, employment and educational opportunities as their white counterparts.