The Case for City Reparations

*J.D., University of Virginia School of Law, expected 2025. Thank you to Professor Richard Schragger for his support in and outside of the classroom, as well as Professor Thomas Nachbar for his feedback on Section II.C. I am forever grateful for the words of Ta-Nehisi Coates, who opened my eyes to the imperative of reparations in 2014. Above all, thank you to my brilliant colleagues on the Virginia Law Review, my fantastic friends, and my supportive family—there is no me (and certainly no Note) without you all.Show More

Once a political boogeyman, calls for Black reparations as a means to advance racial justice in the United States have become increasingly earnest, particularly in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. But among those who view reparations as morally imperative, there is much disagreement about where they should occur. Proponents of reparations have called on federal, state, and local government to implement reparatory justice. But so far, only one institution has meaningfully responded: cities. For the first time in American history, cities across the country are beginning to implement reparations. In this Note, I argue that cities both can and should adopt reparatory policies, as city government—not state or federal—is best positioned to craft effective and constitutional reparations. After surveying current municipal reparations policies, I contend that cities are the correct level at which to pioneer reparations for three reasons: normative, pragmatic, and constitutional. Normative, because city government is proximate, responsive, and capable of unique policy innovation. Pragmatic, because cities enjoy supportive political coalitions that become improbable at the state and federal levels. And constitutional, because race-based programs like reparations must identify and connect a historic harm “with particularity” to the remedy to pass legal muster, which cities are uniquely well-suited to do. After making the case for cities as the proper venue, I suggest ways in which cities can both find reparatory power and avoid unwanted interference by their home states.

Introduction

American reparations are nearly as old as the country itself. From pre-Civil War abolitionist attempts¹ 1.Gary B. Nash, Warner Mifflin: Unflinching Quaker Abolitionist 101–02 (Daniel K. Richter, Kathleen M. Brown, Max Cavitch & David Waldstreicher eds., 2017).Show More to General Sherman’s Field Order No. 15,² 2.William A. Darity Jr. & A. Kirsten Mullen, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century 9 (2d ed. 2020).Show More many Americans have long sought to advance racial justice through reparatory programs. And while these early attempts foundered on the shoals of virulent bigotry and political impossibility, today’s renewed calls for reparations are no longer falling on deaf ears.³ 3.Many credit Ta-Nehisi Coates’s groundbreaking 2014 article The Case for Reparations with popularizing the idea of modern American reparations. See Jonathan Capehart, How Ta-Nehisi Coates Turned Reparations from a Punchline into a Policy Objective, Wash. Post (Mar. 20, 2019, 3:25 PM), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/20/how-ta-nehisi-co‌ates-turned-reparations-punchline-into-policy-objective/ [https://perma.cc/D2AL-BURY]; Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case for Reparations, The Atlantic (June 2014), https://www.theatlanti‌c.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ [https://perma.cc/5XHN-8WW8].Show More

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, public support for reparations grew tremendously, particularly among white Americans.⁴ 4.See Ashley V. Reichelmann & Matthew O. Hunt, How We Repair It: White Americans’ Attitudes Toward Reparations, Brookings Inst. (Dec. 8, 2021), https://www.brookings.edu/arti‌cles/how-we-repair-it-white-americans-attitudes-toward-reparations/ [https://perma.cc/5KB9‌-XSXX] (noting that white American support for cash reparations grew from 6% in 2014 to 28% in 2021, an increase of over 300%).Show More As then-California Assemblywoman Shirley Weber put it at the time, “Folks [are] now begin[ning] to realize just how extensively, how deeply, issues of race are embedded in our society and how that can produce what we saw happen to George Floyd in Minneapolis.”⁵ 5.Lauren Gambino, Calls for Reparations Are Growing Louder. How Is the US Responding?, The Guardian (June 20, 2020, 5:00 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/world/‌2020/jun/20/joe-biden-reparations-slavery-george-floyd-protests [https://perma.cc/FE3T-GY‌RA].Show More When Americans began to call for reparations, policymakers in city, state, and federal government all made commitments to consider reparatory justice.⁶ 6.See, e.g., Eugene Daniels, Biden Privately Tells Lawmakers Not to Expect Much on Reparations Legislation, Politico (June 2, 2021, 1:46 PM), https://www.politico.com/news/20‌21/06/02/biden-reparations-tulsa-491607 [https://perma.cc/4B27-WBXU] (“As a candidate, Biden said he supported a commission on reparations.”); Madeline Holcombe, California Passes a First-of-Its-Kind Law to Consider Reparations for Slavery, CNN (Oct. 1, 2020, 8:27 AM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/01/us/california-bill-slavery-reparations-trnd/index‌.html [https://perma.cc/5BP9-FW6D] (describing California Governor Gavin Newsom’s support for a statewide reparations committee); Adam Beam, 11US Mayors Pledge to Pay Reparations for Slavery to Small Groups of Black Residents, USA Today (June 20, 2021, 1:35 PM), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/19/reparations-slavery-pled‌ged-11-us-mayors-pilot-program/7753319002/ [https://perma.cc/G92D-68RM].Show More But while leaders in state and national governments later hedged on those commitments,⁷ 7.See, e.g., Daniels, supra note 6; Jeremy B. White, Cash for Slavery Reparations in California Draws Cool Response from Newsom, Politico (May 10, 2023, 1:23 PM), https://‌www.politico.com/news/2023/05/10/slavery-reparations-california-newsom-00096211 [https://perma.cc/MM9Y-ME85].Show More city officials capitalized on the movement’s momentum and became the first governments in the country to seriously attempt reparations. Today, a handful of American cities are already administering reparatory programs;⁸ 8.See, e.g., Evanston Local Reparations, City of Evanston, https://www.cityofevanston.org‌/government/city-council/reparations [https://perma.cc/U8RA-8V44] (last visited Aug. 30, 2024).Show More many others have established task forces to lay the groundwork for their own programs.⁹ 9.See, e.g., Community Reparations Commission, City of Asheville, https://www.asheville‌nc.gov/department/city-clerk/boards-and-commissions/reparations-commission/ [https://per‌ma.cc/BD4Z-L5NM] (last updated Aug. 15, 2024).Show More

In this Note, I argue that cities both can and should adopt reparatory policies. City government—not state or federal—is the best venue for achieving both effective and constitutional reparations. In Part I, I review the various definitions of reparations, survey the landscape of current city reparations programs, and consider evidence of those programs’ success. In Part II, I argue that cities are the best venues for reparations for three principal reasons. First, these reasons are normative, because city government is proximate, responsive, and capable of unique policy innovation. Next, they are pragmatic, because cities enjoy supportive political coalitions that become improbable at the state and federal levels. And finally, these reasons are constitutional, because race-based programs like reparations must connect to a historic harm “with particularity” to pass legal muster, which cities are uniquely well-suited to do. In Part III, I suggest several practical considerations for cities seeking to craft their own reparations policies—principal among them, financing their program and avoiding interference by the state in which they sit.

It is prudent to acknowledge that this Note is grounded in one fundamental principle: reparations are morally appropriate. I do not waive this debate lightly.¹⁰ 10.Much has been said already about the need for reparations, but the debate continues. For arguments in favor of reparations, see Coates, supra note 3. See generally Susan S. Kuo & Benjamin Means, A Corporate Law Rationale for Reparations, 62 B.C. L. Rev. 799 (2021) (arguing that the corporate law model can bolster the argument for reparations and responding to the objection that individuals are not personally responsible for slavery and Jim Crow laws); Joyce Hope Scott, Reparations, Restitution, and Transitional Justice: American Chattel Slavery & Its Aftermath, A Moral Debate Whose Time Has Come, 39 Wis. Int’lL.J. 269 (2022) (arguing for slavery reparations to acknowledge and redress the civil and human rights violations of slavery and beyond). For arguments against the moral and legal propriety of reparations, see Richard A. Epstein, The Case Against Black Reparations, 84 B.U. L. Rev. 1177 (2004) (contending that reparations will not work as a legal matter); Gregory Kane, Comment, Why the Reparations Movement Should Fail, 3 U. Md. L.J. Race, Religion, Gender & Class 189 (2003) (arguing that reparations are not the proper vehicle for repairing historic harms to Black Americans).Show More My argument, however, is responsive to the question of where reparations should occur, not why they should—though I hope that place-based arguments will speak indirectly to the normative value of reparations themselves. In short, my argument is rooted in a belief that the moral propriety of reparations cannot, and indeed must not, be divorced from how they are achieved and where they occur—but because there has been much written on the former, I turn my attention instead to the latter.

1.  Gary B. Nash, Warner Mifflin: Unflinching Quaker Abolitionist 101–02 (Daniel K. Richter, Kathleen M. Brown, Max Cavitch & David Waldstreicher eds., 2017). ↑
2.  William A. Darity Jr. & A. Kirsten Mullen, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century 9 (2d ed. 2020). ↑
3.  Many credit Ta-Nehisi Coates’s groundbreaking 2014 article The Case for Reparations with popularizing the idea of modern American reparations. See Jonathan Capehart, How Ta-Nehisi Coates Turned Reparations from a Punchline into a Policy Objective, Wash. Post (Mar. 20, 2019, 3:25 PM), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/20/how-ta-nehisi-co‌ates-turned-reparations-punchline-into-policy-objective/ [https://perma.cc/D2AL-BURY]; Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case for Reparations, The Atlantic (June 2014), https://www.theatlanti‌c.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ [https://perma.cc/5XHN-8WW8]. ↑
4.  See Ashley V. Reichelmann & Matthew O. Hunt, How We Repair It: White Americans’ Attitudes Toward Reparations, Brookings Inst. (Dec. 8, 2021), https://www.brookings.edu/arti‌cles/how-we-repair-it-white-americans-attitudes-toward-reparations/ [https://perma.cc/5KB9‌-XSXX] (noting that white American support for cash reparations grew from 6% in 2014 to 28% in 2021, an increase of over 300%). ↑
5.  Lauren Gambino, Calls for Reparations Are Growing Louder. How Is the US Responding?, The Guardian (June 20, 2020, 5:00 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/world/‌2020/jun/20/joe-biden-reparations-slavery-george-floyd-protests [https://perma.cc/FE3T-GY‌RA]. ↑
6.  See, e.g., Eugene Daniels, Biden Privately Tells Lawmakers Not to Expect Much on Reparations Legislation, Politico (June 2, 2021, 1:46 PM), https://www.politico.com/news/20‌21/06/02/biden-reparations-tulsa-491607 [https://perma.cc/4B27-WBXU] (“As a candidate, Biden said he supported a commission on reparations.”); Madeline Holcombe, California Passes a First-of-Its-Kind Law to Consider Reparations for Slavery, CNN (Oct. 1, 2020, 8:27 AM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/01/us/california-bill-slavery-reparations-trnd/index‌.html [https://perma.cc/5BP9-FW6D] (describing California Governor Gavin Newsom’s support for a statewide reparations committee); Adam Beam, 11 US Mayors Pledge to Pay Reparations for Slavery to Small Groups of Black Residents, USA Today (June 20, 2021, 1:35 PM), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/19/reparations-slavery-pled‌ged-11-us-mayors-pilot-program/7753319002/ [https://perma.cc/G92D-68RM]. ↑
7.  See, e.g., Daniels, supra note 6; Jeremy B. White, Cash for Slavery Reparations in California Draws Cool Response from Newsom, Politico (May 10, 2023, 1:23 PM), https://‌www.politico.com/news/2023/05/10/slavery-reparations-california-newsom-00096211 [https://perma.cc/MM9Y-ME85]. ↑
8.  See, e.g., Evanston Local Reparations, City of Evanston, https://www.cityofevanston.org‌/government/city-council/reparations [https://perma.cc/U8RA-8V44] (last visited Aug. 30, 2024). ↑
9.  See, e.g., Community Reparations Commission, City of Asheville, https://www.asheville‌nc.gov/department/city-clerk/boards-and-commissions/reparations-commission/ [https://per‌ma.cc/BD4Z-L5NM] (last updated Aug. 15, 2024). ↑

10.  Much has been said already about the need for reparations, but the debate continues. For arguments in favor of reparations, see Coates, supra note 3. See generally Susan S. Kuo & Benjamin Means, A Corporate Law Rationale for Reparations, 62 B.C. L. Rev. 799 (2021) (arguing that the corporate law model can bolster the argument for reparations and responding to the objection that individuals are not personally responsible for slavery and Jim Crow laws); Joyce Hope Scott, Reparations, Restitution, and Transitional Justice: American Chattel Slavery & Its Aftermath, A Moral Debate Whose Time Has Come, 39 Wis. Int’l

    L.J. 269 (2022) (arguing for slavery reparations to acknowledge and redress the civil and human rights violations of slavery and beyond). For arguments against the moral and legal propriety of reparations, see Richard A. Epstein, The Case Against Black Reparations, 84 B.U. L. Rev. 1177 (2004) (contending that reparations will not work as a legal matter); Gregory Kane, Comment, Why the Reparations Movement Should Fail, 3 U. Md. L.J. Race, Religion, Gender & Class 189 (2003) (arguing that reparations are not the proper vehicle for repairing historic harms to Black Americans). ↑