San Francisco sued over reparations plan for black residents

San Francisco could be in hot water over a plan to pay reparations to black residents.

Two San Francisco taxpayers, activist Richie Greenberg and resident Arthur Ritchie, have sued the city over the controversial plan to hand out benefits to “individuals who are black and/or descendants of a chattel enslaved person and have experienced a proven harm in San Francisco,” according to a bill quietly signed by Mayor Daniel Lurie in December.

The plaintiffs, including the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, slammed the reparations plan as a “sordid and unconstitutional enterprise” amounting to a “racial spoils system” in a fiery complaint filed Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court.

“Though presented as a response to slavery, San Francisoc’s plan will impose sweeping racial classifications on present-day residents who neither endured enslavement nor inflicted it,” the complaint states.

“Once we are served, we will review the complaint and respond in court,” said Jen Kwart, spokesperson for San Francisco’s city attorney.

The reparations bill, introduced by Supervisor Shamann Walton last year, creates a city-run reparations fund that can accept private donations and public money for benefits such as cash payouts of $5 million to eligible black residents, debt forgiveness, 250 years of tax abatements, and income subsidies, according to a reparations framework circulated in 2023.

But Lurie admitted in December the city is too broke to fund the plan as the city faces a two-year deficit as high as $936 million.

The plaintiffs argue that the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, which is set to administer the reparations plan, cannot legally use government resources for a racially discriminatory purpose.

While advocates argue that reparations are needed to repair discrimination suffered by black San Franciscans, who suffered under policies such as redlining and redevelopment that decimated many Black-owned homes and businesses, critics call the plan empty virtue-signaling at best.

“They have put rhetoric and ideology ahead of the city’s residents,” Greenberg said, referring to Lurie and the Board of Supervisors that voted unanimously in favor of the reparations bill.