Woke San Francisco lawmakers unanimously voted to create a reparations fund for the city’s small black community — despite claims that the plan could run afoul of the Constitution.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday to establish the fund to benefit black residents who suffered discrimination under city policies.
The fund will tap private donations and city money appropriated to it to provide services and potentially cash payouts up to $5 million, according to one eye-popping proposal floated in 2023.
The reparations are meant to “provide restitution, compensation, and rehabilitation to individuals
who are Black and/or descendants of a chattel enslaved person and have experienced a proven harm in
San Francisco,” according to the bill.
“I think it is horrendously unlawful. The ordinance has a very explicit racially discriminatory purpose,” said Andrew Quinio, attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation.
“The ordinance has a very explicit racially discriminatory purpose,” he added.
Quinio said under laws like the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and California’s Prop. 209, governments can’t discriminate on the basis of race or other protected characteristics — even if private funds are used.
The reparations fund would be run by San Francisco’s Human Rights Commission, which fell into scandal last year after a top official was accused of skimming funds from a similar initiative to pay for a spa retreat, parties, her podcast — and even her son’s UCLA tuition.
A reparations panel in 2023 issued a report making dozens of recommendations, ranging from $5 million cash payouts and affordable housing to income subsidies and tax abatements for 250 years.
That report will be “central” to the reparations fund, according to a Human Rights Commission spokesperson.
Local conservative activist Richie Greenberg blasted the reparations plan as the product of “shoddy research.”
“As a result, they rubber-stamped a horrendous, unworkable and unlawful mess,” he raged.
Advocates argue the city’s history of redlining and razing homes owned by black families during redevelopment decades ago have caused long-term damage to the community, which has shrunk considerably to some 5% of the city population.
“This is not the end-all, be-all of what we have to do in San Francisco,” said Supervisor Shamann Walton, who wrote the reparations bill, at a Dec.1. committee meeting.
Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office did not respond to The Post about whether he plans to sign the bill.
This isn’t San Francisco’s first foray into reparations.
In 2023, Walton asked for $50 million from the city’s shrinking budget to create an Office of Reparations — but was rebuffed by former Mayor London Breed.
Breed instead pushed resources to the Dream Keeper Initiative, an ill-fated, $120 million program to support the city’s black community, which has struggled with high rates of homelessness, drug abuse, and poverty.
The program was tainted by scandal and accusations of self-dealing after its head, former Human Rights Commission Director Sheryl Davis, allegedly steered city funds to her roommate’s nonprofit and used government funds for personal expenses, including her son’s tuition.
Davis resigned last year and the Human Rights Commission has since launched reforms.
