Lawsuit Targets San Francisco Reparations Plan: ‘Unconstitutional Racial Spoils System’

San Francisco residents are suing the city over a Reparations Fund established solely for black residents, two months after the fund’s initial creation sparked controversy.

One plaintiff, Richie Greenberg, said the fund is “dividing the city rather than trying to unite.”

“What we really need is to be focusing on how to uplift everybody rather than focusing on one group giving everything to that one group,” Greenberg told Fox News Digital.

The original bill, signed right before Christmas, established a dedicated reparations fund, creating a legal framework to address what the city deems to be historical systemic harms against its black community, The Daily Wire previously reported. It included a proposal that could eventually grant eligible residents lump-sum payments of $5 million.

“San Francisco is engaged in a sordid and unconstitutional enterprise — it is administering funding and wielding public authority to distribute government benefits explicitly based on race and ancestry,” the lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs argue San Francisco is violating the Constitution by distributing money on the basis of race, through the city’s Human Rights Commission.

“By directing an agency funded almost entirely by taxpayer dollars to administer funding solely dedicated to implement race-exclusive benefits, the City is using public money, public employees, and public authority to carry out an unconstitutional racial spoils system that allocates benefits and opportunities based on race and ancestry,” the lawsuit says.

The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER) is one of the plaintiffs in the case. Greenberg and fellow plaintiff Arthur Ritchie are members of CFER. In 2023, CFER sued San Francisco over allegedly racially discriminatory guaranteed income programs, The Daily Wire previously reported.

Additional benefits for eligible black residents include debt forgiveness for a variety of loans, exemption of property taxes, and priority status for employment opportunities, according to the lawsuit.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said in December that the plan would not require taxpayer dollars, instead setting up a “structure” for future city or private funding. The city’s $1 billion budget deficit prevents immediate funding, but the plan signals a shift in city policy.

“We need to stop this because it is a tremendous, tremendous amount of funding that would, eventually, basically kill the city,” Greenberg said. “It would destroy the city of San Francisco, and it would set up an unworkable situation of who within the city gets preference as opposed to everyone else that would not.”