News Update

Berkeley Unified creating a task force to look into reparations for Black students

Over the next year, Berkeley Unified will consider cash payments as reparations to Black students whose ancestors were enslaved in the United States. The district is establishing a 15-20 member Reparations Task Force consisting of school board members and staff, and community members. Iits first meeting is April 24, according to a website on the effort.

“We believe this is a critical conversation for school districts to have at this moment as educators look to better address the opportunity gap of Black students,” school district spokeswoman Trish McDermott told the San Francisco Chronicle.

About 1,270 of the district’s 10,200 students are Black. It’s unclear how many of those students would qualify and where the funding for reparations would come from.

The Berkeley City Council is also considering developing recommendations for reparations; a reparations task force in San Francisco has submitted dozens of recommendations to the Board of Supervisors, including the potential for $5 million one-time payments to certain individuals. By July 1, California’s state task force will forward its recommendations to the Legislature on cash payments.


Latest updates: