SACRAMENTO — With diversity programs under full assault by the Trump administration, California lawmakers are considering a measure that would allow state colleges to consider whether applicants are descendants of African Americans who were enslaved in the United States.
The bill, which would probably face a legal challenge if passed, is part of a package of 15 reparations bills supported by the California Legislative Black Caucus being considered in the current legislative session.
Assembly Bill 7, introduced by Assemblymember Isaac G. Bryan (D-Los Angeles), if passed, could potentially skirt around the state’s ban on affirmative action. California voters in 1996 approved a state ballot measure, Proposition 209, that bars colleges from considering race, sex, ethnicity, color or national origin in admissions under Proposition 209. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 also ruled those programs were unconstitutional.
Bryan, however, says his has nothing to do with race and doesn’t use the terms “Black” or “African American” in its text.
“Descendants of people who are enslaved could identify in a variety of racial ways, and then phenotypically even present in different ways than they racially identify,” he said in an interview with The Times. “But if your ancestors were enslaved in this country, then there’s a direct lineage-based tie to harms that were inflicted during enslavement and in the after lives thereafter.”
The bill, and others in the reparations package, had seen widespread support within the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority and are representative of California’s values, Bryan said.
“I think California is quite clear where it positions itself in this moment, and that is in the support of all people, recognizing the harms of the past and trying to build a future that includes everybody. And if that appears in conflict with the federal government, I think that has more to do with the way the government is posturing than who we are as Californians,” he said.
Last year, when only 10 of 14 bills in the reparations package passed through the Legislature, reform advocates felt the efforts were lackluster. Lawmakers believed it was a foundation they could build upon, Assemblymember Lori D. Wilson (D-Suisun City) said in September.
AB 7’s focus on lineage, said Taifha Alexander, a professor at UCLA and expert in critical race theory, could face legal trouble if a judge believed it used lineage as a proxy for race. It could be ruled unconstitutionally discriminatory under the 14th Amendment.
A separate reparations bill, however, could help offer a legal definition to separate race from lineage. Senate Bill 518 would create a state bureau for descendants of American slavery. The state agency would verify a person’s status as a descendant and help applicants access benefits.
Comprehensive reparation legislation isn’t a novel idea and has been enacted before, Alexander said. In the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, the federal government formally apologized to Japanese Americans for their illegal incarceration in detention camps during World War II, and included a one-time payment of $20,000 to survivors.
Reparations — in the form of cash payments — fell flat with voters when last polled by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times in 2023. More than 4 in 10 California voters “strongly” opposed cash payments and 59% opposed the idea, with 28% in support. None of the bills currently before the Legislature includes cash reparations.
Other forms of reparations, such as a change to the college admissions process and social programs, are still valid ways to address inequities, Alexander said.
But a bill like AB 7, which looks to circumvent existing law, could face headwinds from the public who could see it as unfair, she said.
With the outcome of the 2023 Supreme Court case which banned college admissions processes from using race, she said the policy was unlikely to be popular.
Opponents argue the bill’s distinction between race and ancestry is not enough to survive judicial review, and believe a court will find lineage to be a proxy for race to circumvent the ban.
“Suppose, instead, that a state passed a law making university admission more difficult for descendants of American slavery. Would anyone argue that such a law should be upheld? Of course not,” Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions and the lawyer who argued and won the case to ban affirmative action, said in a statement to The Times.
“It would be struck down immediately as unconstitutional racial discrimination. That hypothetical reveals the core defect of AB 7 — it makes a race-linked classification under the guise of ancestry and will not withstand judicial review. If enacted, this legislation will face a swift and vigorous legal challenge in federal court and be struck down. It takes Herculean stupidity to believe otherwise,” Blum wrote.
Other bills still working through the legislative process include measures that would set aside home purchase assistance funds for descendants of American slavery that are buying their first homes and direct state agencies to address mortgage lending discrimination.
The reparations legislation that has failed to advance includes a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have banned prisons from requiring inmates to work, which some consider state-sanctioned slavery or indentured servitude.
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