On Thursday, June 6, 2024 the Berkeley Unified School District Reparations Task Force published a final report detailing how they recommend the district implement reparations for students descended from enslaved persons. The Task Force was created last year by BUSD Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel after about a hundred Berkeley residents sent a letter to the school board urging the district to implement reparations. They cited the significant gap between the test scores of African American and White students in Berkeley public schools, arguing that the achievement gap can only be solved by addressing its root cause of systemic racism.
“Berkeley is considered one of the most progressive cities in America yet our schools continue to see racial disparities in academic achievement,” Dawn Williams, an African American Studies Department leader, said. “Reparations should be explored as a solution to the problem of inequity in education.”
The Task Force is composed of 15 volunteers, including school board members, staff, teachers, parents, and a Berkeley High School senior, who met monthly for a year to assess how the district should implement reparations, both monetary and non-monetary, for students that are Descendants of enslaved people.
“(Reparations) would be putting resources towards communities that have been harmed in the past and continue to be harmed to this day,” Jennifer Shanoski, a school board member, said.
In the end, the Task Force pinned down three categories of reparations that they thought would be beneficial to BUSD families, including financial payments to BUSD Descendant students, truth-telling and acknowledgement by BUSD, and changes to BUSD programs.
These final recommendations were for the district to implement additional curriculum on the history and enduring effects of slavery, create a “harm report,” and make monetary payments to the families of Descendant Students for educational purposes. A survey conducted by the task force in December of 2023 concluded that there was very strong community support for these types of reparations. Monetary compensation for educational purposes was the type of reparation with the most support, with 85 perecnt of all respondents — but only 77 percent of Descendant respondents — agreeing that they should be implemented.
The additional curriculum, the report said, should include information about the enduring effects of slavery in California and Berkeley and discuss the harm BUSD has brought upon Descendant community members. The harm report would record the harm BUSD has allegedly inflicted, collect historical data on student outcomes, and include interviews with former and present BUSD community members.
The monetary compensation, which garnered the most support from the community survey of the reparation options, would be a way to attempt to repair the harm that BUSD has caused to Descendant students. Originally, the Task Force had considered “unrestricted cash payments” to Descendant students but the task force eventually decided to restrict them for educational purposes, since it decided that the harm BUSD has caused, being a school district, is educational.
The task force explored many potential sources that these financial reparations could come from. It ruled out taking money from the BUSD general fund, for the reason that redirecting existing money into reparations payments may take money out of existing programs that are helping Descendant students.
Ultimately, the task force landed on three potential sources of funding: soliciting donations from philanthropic foundations and corporations, launching a lawsuit against corporations whose actions have arguably furthered the legacy of slavery and led to lower funding for BUSD, and proposing a new tax in Berkeley. The report acknowledges that a new tax could potentially cost Descendant families money as well, but asserts that it would be helpful overall.
“I hope that the board will consider the lawsuit,” Williams said, adding that banks might be a target “Banks have largely escaped accountability in the tremendous role they played in creating segregated housing and schools in Berkeley.”
All of these potential sources would require District time and money to implement, but the money would be recovered if the methods are successful.
According to Shanoski, implementing the recommendations would require district support.
“I certainly hope that we do implement the recommendations, but it would need to be agendized by the board president and superintendent,” said Shanoski. “Then, we would need to find and assess the report and determine what to implement, and then how to implement it.”
It is unclear whether the recommendations by the BUSD Reparations Task Force will be implemented, or when, but many community members are eagerly waiting on the next steps.
“We were meant to make a difference and that difference will happen,” said Dr. Monique Allen, a task force member.