A proposed California bill will prioritize slave descendants in college admissions, according to a report from the Associated Press.
The legislation’s author, Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D), told the AP, “For decades universities gave preferential admission treatment to donors, and their family members, while others tied to legacies of harm were ignored and at times outright excluded.
“We have a moral responsibility to do all we can to right those wrongs,” he said, adding, “When folks think about reparations, they think about just cash payments. But repairing the harm and the inequality that came from slavery and the policies thereafter is a much bigger process.”
Andrew Quinio, an equality and opportunity attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, told The Center Square that the bill “ostensibly can be seen as race-neutral, because they’re saying descendents of enslaved persons would receive admission priority, but if that ancestry is simply just a proxy for race and ethnicity, then that would violate the Constitution.”
“The Supreme Court has determined before that ancestry is race — oftentimes when ancestry is being used to make distinctions among individuals it is meant ultimately as a stand-in for race,” Quinio said.
According to KFF, 4.4% of California children are Black.
Earlier this year, the California Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would create an agency to pass out reparations payments.
SB 1403, written by State Senator Steven Bradford (D), would establish the California American Freedman Affairs Agency, which would then be tasked with implementing ideas from California’s reparations task force.
“The agency shall implement the recommendations of the task force, as approved by the Legislature and the Governor,” the bill’s text reads. “As part of its duties, the agency shall determine how an individual’s status as a descendant shall be confirmed. Proof of an individual’s descendent status shall be a qualifying criteria for benefits authorized by the state for descendants.”
Two offices will be created under the agency, the “Genealogy Office” and an “Office of General Counsel.”
