Californians for Equal Rights Foundation Sues San Francisco to Stop its Reparations Plan

The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation and two co-plaintiffs have filed suit against the City and County of San Francisco and San Francisco Human Rights Commission to stop the unconstitutional reparations fund plan. The Pacific Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit with the Superior Court of the State of California in San Francisco, along with Mr. Richie Greenberg, a California Globe contributor, and Mr. Arthur Richie. Both co-plaintiffs are CFER members and San Francisco residents.

CFER says San Francisco has violated the constitutional principle of equal protection in instituting a sweeping reparation plan that essentially imposes “racial classifications on present-day residents who neither endured enslavement nor inflicted it.”

By doing so, San Francisco has weaponized government action, public authority and taxpayer dollars to distribute benefits on the basis of race and ancestry. Specifically, the San Francisco Reparations Plan violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Proposition 209 and California Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection (Article I, Section 7).

The lawsuit states:

“Through its Reparations Plan, San Francisco has abandoned the principle of individual equality in favor of collective racial entitlement and disadvantage. Though presented as a response to slavery, San Francisco’s plan will impose sweeping racial classifications on present-day residents who neither endured enslavement nor inflicted it.

“Thanks to our strategic ally PLF, we are able to launch this timely legal challenge shortly after the reparations plan was enacted,” commented CFER President Frank Xu. We are confident that the equal rights for all San Franciscans, including our courageous co-plaintiffs Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Richie, as well as many unnamed CFER members in San Francisco, will be defended swiftly and resolutely.

“I’ve been keenly paying attention to this issue of Reparations for several years now, watching as city hall officials (and now the mayor), have consistently ignored law and constitutional rights of us taxpayers. They have put rhetoric and ideology ahead of the city’s residents,” Richie Greenberg said. “I have reached out to the Board of Supervisors, the mayor, the city attorney and the reparations committee itself to demand they cease wasting taxpayers’ money on this unconstitutional plan, and the time has come to bring them to court.”

In 2023, the Globe reported on four San Francisco guaranteed-income programs solely based on race.

“It’s cartoonishly unconstitutional for San Francisco and its co-conspirators to so blatantly distribute public resources based on race,” explained ACR Project Executive Director Dan Morenoff. “No serious person could look at any of these programs and tell you with a straight face that they satisfy strict scrutiny.”

The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation and American Civil Rights Project, notified San Francisco city and county, the San Francisco Unified School District, the University of California San Francisco and the California Health and Human Services Agency their intent to sue.

“The California Constitution unambiguously prohibits public agencies from treating individuals differently on the basis of race,” said CFER President Frank Xu. “But these entities ignore the law and offer race-preferential under the disguise of equity.

“In 1996, via the passage of Proposition 209, over 55% of California voters voted to codify the state constitutional ban on racial preferences,” CFER said. In 2020, 9.65 million Californians reaffirmed this commitment to equal protection by striking down Prop. 16. While the California Constitution unambiguously prohibits public agencies from treating individuals differently on the basis of race, many state agencies have chosen to disregard the principle and offer race-preferential programs under the disguise of equity.”