—Barrington Williams, B1Daily

In recent years, California For Equal Rights (CFER) and the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) have positioned themselves as defenders of “colorblind” policies, yet their legal and political campaigns reveal a troubling pattern: they disproportionately target policies aimed at remedying systemic inequities faced by Black Americans.

From opposing affirmative action to challenging lineage-based reparations, these right-leaning organizations consistently fight efforts to address racial disparities, while ignoring similar programs benefiting other groups.

Most notably, both CFER and PLF have aggressively contested reparations proposals for Black Californians, arguing that such policies violate equal protection laws by considering race or ancestry. However, their legal reasoning collapses under scrutiny.

Lineage-based reparations are neither unprecedented nor legally dubious.

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have received redress for WWII-era Japanese internment through the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Jewish Holocaust survivors and their descendants have secured reparations from Germany and other entities. These programs were uncontroversially accepted as just compensation for historical atrocities, yet when Black Americans seek similar redress for slavery, Jim Crow, and ongoing discrimination, CFER and PLF suddenly decry “race-based preferences.”

The hypocrisy is glaring. If lineage-based reparations were truly legally suspect, these organizations would challenge all such policies. Instead, they selectively attack those benefiting Black communities, revealing a partisan agenda masquerading as principled legal advocacy.

Black Americans have an indisputable moral and legal claim to reparations, one already validated by precedent. The question isn’t whether reparations are lawful, but why CFER and PLF believe some lineages deserve justice and others do not.

And notice Democrats are not saying or doing anything to stop these vexatious litigants, either. The Democrats have specialized at allowing Black Americans’ issues to be attacked and derailed before they become mainstream issues.

As California moves forward with reparations proposals, these groups will likely continue their crusade. But their arguments lack consistency, and their hostility toward Black redress speaks louder than their rhetoric about equality.

—Barrington Williams, B1Daily