Financial assistance for educational needs and a new curriculum for teaching the legacy of chattel slavery were among the most popular reparations the Berkeley public schools could offer to Black families who are the descendants of slaves, a survey released this week showed.
The Berkeley Unified School District’s reparations task force survey asked over 2,000 caregivers, former students and employees about the types of reparations they would favor as part of a possible district program that provides direct payments and other support to Black students in Berkeley Unified School District.
See the BUSD reparations task force survey results
It found strong support for direct financial payments toward education and a robust curriculum on the history of chattel slavery in the United States.
The survey was designed by the district’s 18-member reparations task force, which began meeting last spring to explore ways the district can help compensate for a legacy of segregation and racism initiated by chattel slavery in the United States. Possibilities include designing a program that would distribute cash payments to students with enslaved ancestors, scholarship funding and developing new curricula.
Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel emailed the survey to students, parents and other caregivers, former BUSD students and employees on Jan. 3 and responses were collected by Jan. 19.
Respondents who said they were descendants of enslaved people comprised 14% of the survey results, with another 8% saying they weren’t sure. Seventeen percent of respondents identified as African-American/Black, and 62% white. The task force did additional outreach through personal networks to ensure it reached people who would eventually benefit from the program, according to member Erika Weissinger.
Fifty-six percent of people who responded said they “strongly agree” that American society owes a debt to the descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. for the impacts of chattel slavery and its ongoing impacts.
Direct payments toward education and housing were the most popular options among all respondents. The largest disparity in support was for unrestricted cash payments, which were backed by 50% support from people who said they were descendants of enslaved people, but only 32% of all respondents.
The task force plans to present the survey and recommendations to the district this summer. The survey results will be used to inform the task force’s ongoing work to determine whether BUSD will fund reparations, what they will look like and how they would be paid for. One possibility is to levy a local tax.
The results were released Monday at a community meeting at the BUSD board room, where attendees reviewed and critiqued the results.
Ann Callegari, a retired BUSD administrator, supports the district making unrestricted cash payments in its reparations program. She said controlling the flow of direct payments perpetuates longstanding stereotypes about Black people being untrustworthy.
“To do that says we still have power over you,” she said.
Her concern is part of a broader national discussion on reparations, as some local, state and some federal authorities decided whether to offer cash payments to directly pay back Black people for the harms of slavery, segregation and racism.
Luis Rodriguez, a King Middle School parent and assistant professor at UC Law San Francisco, said he supports curriculum changes that include local history regarding racism and exclusionary housing that continues to impact Black Berkeley residents today.
This includes redlining and racial covenants, which prevented Black people and people of color from being able to purchase homes in North Berkeley and the Berkeley Hills. The Berkeley City Council began its own push toward reparations in 2022, but there hasn’t been notable progress.
“Those policies are why we have Berkeley the way it is today,” Rodriguez said. “This is not chattel slavery in the 1600’s, this is the 1900’s-ongoing — and it’s still happening.”
Weissinger said the task force is still doing community engagement, and responses from people who are descendants of enslaved populations will be prioritized in its final recommendations to the school board.
If the board chooses to fund the program with a tax, she said, they will have to make decisions about what elements to move forward to voters.
“The Board has a really important role to play here. We can say what we found, we can qualify it with some additional expert perspective,” Weissinger said. “Ultimately this is something voters will have to decide on, if they’re willing to be taxed to support Black reparations.”
