Reparations and Education: Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter on California’s AB 7 and Social Repair

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/10/27

Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter is the Scott Waugh Endowed Chair in the Division of the Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at UCLA. A leading scholar on race, politics, and reparative justice, Hunter is the author of Radical Reparations and other influential works exploring social repair, education, and systemic inequality. His research and activism focus on building frameworks for justice that address historical harms, from enslavement to present inequities. As an educator, author, and activist, Hunter continues to shape public discourse on reparations, higher education, and the unfinished work of Reconstruction.

In this interview with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter discusses California’s AB 7 reparations proposal and its broader implications for education and social justice. Hunter explains how AB 7 differs from previous reparations measures by focusing on higher education admissions for descendants of enslaved people without requiring new taxpayer expenditures. He highlights its legal grounding in Supreme Court reasoning and its role in testing whether reparations programs can survive judicial scrutiny. The conversation explores the history of educational access, the scope of California’s Reparations Task Force, and future pathways for social repair, including labour acknowledgments alongside land acknowledgments.

Interview conducted on September 17.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are with Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter. He is an activist and author, the Scott Waugh Endowed Chair in the Division of the Social Sciences, and Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at UCLA. Thank you very much for joining me today.

Prof. Marcus Anthony Hunter: I appreciate it. I am happy to be here. Thank you. 

Jacobsen: So, how does AB 7 differ from previous reparations-related proposals in California and other states?

Hunter: I will answer that with a slight adjustment: it is not so much that AB 7 is different. It is very similar to other proposals that have been put forward in the sense that it seeks a pathway to repair and heal from a history of enslavement and dehumanization.

It is also similar in that it considers the public square and public resources that can be devoted to repairing the harm. In the case of AB 7, it focuses on providing education opportunities—higher education in particular, so universities and colleges specifically.

It proposes that universities and colleges make special considerations in admissions for those who are descendants of enslaved people in the United States. So it is a suggestion, as it were. One of the things that makes it notable is that it does not require new appropriations. An important aspect that AB 7 really emphasizes is that not all forms of repair—or what we affectionately call reparations—require direct compensation or expenditure.

The legislation suggests: what if we start making considerations within the budgets we already have, by opening up the opportunity to add this factor into the profile of who we consider for college admissions? It helps people understand and reminds them that not everything has to come from taxpayers. Some of this is about creating a policy framework that allows universities and colleges—in the case of education—to do what they are probably already doing, or should be doing, but to do it in a way that does not make it seem as though the state is forcing them. Instead, it gives them the leeway to make those considerations based on their needs, applicants, and admissions goals.

Jacobsen: During the legislative process, what were the main arguments proposed in support of AB 7? Moreover, as a sort of sub-commentary, because you have said it does not require any additional funds—only working within current budgets with additional considerations—were these kinds of points used to counter objections to prior proposals in the United States?

Hunter: Yes. One of the general points of opposition around reparations has been direct compensation. That is the most opposed aspect of reparations. What happens, though, is that opposition to that particular form of reparations tends to conflate all the other forms of repair that exist.

In my own book, Radical Reparations, I argue that there are piles of injuries, piles of harm, and piles of repair: political, intellectual, legal, economic, spatial, spiritual, and social repair. AB 7 falls into the social repair category, where you really think about ways to repair the social contract. For example, after the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were enacted, but there was no real infrastructure or pathway that fully enfranchised formerly disenfranchised members of the population. The social contract is where you want to get to, and one of the most important social goods is education. How do we then work within the idea that education is a social good?

One piece of opposition that came during the earlier stages of AB 7 was from a group whose name I cannot recall right now. They appeared to be connected to the opposition to Harvard that went before the Supreme Court. Specifically, it was a group of Asian American plaintiffs who argued that they were being discriminated against under Harvard’s race-conscious admissions practices. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the students and against Harvard’s policy in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case in 2023. That same coalition, or an allied group, showed up in California and testified in opposition to AB 7.

However, they represented only a small number of opponents. By contrast, a line stretched through the Capitol building, filled with supporters from a wide range of backgrounds. So in AB 7’s case, the opposition was far smaller than the number of proponents.

The second piece to note is that in that Supreme Court decision—commonly referred to as the “affirmative action decision”—Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion. In it, he said that if considerations were being made for freedmen or freedwomen, formerly enslaved people in America, that would be a different conversation, because those individuals constitute a special class. If you are talking about a special class of people that is distinct from what critics often call “reverse racism.” He made this point explicitly.

So what AB 7 is doing is picking up on that jurisprudence. If formerly enslaved people and their descendants are considered a distinct or memorable class, then let us take that up. One of the other points of AB 7 is not just about policy, but also about invoking the judicial branch in the reparations conversation. Up to this point, the courts have not been fully engaged outside of torts, meaning civil lawsuits. There have been tort cases seeking reparations across many decades. However, in terms of the court system being actively involved, AB 7 creates an opportunity to engage them because one of the ongoing questions around reparations is whether such measures would survive strict scrutiny—the highest standard of judicial review.

When we consider the Constitution, the question arises: if AB 7 or similar reparative justice programs were to reach the Supreme Court, would they withstand strict scrutiny? The idea of AB 7 is to take up the conservative justices’ point that enslaved people represented a special class, a designation dating back to the Freedmen’s Bureau. Congress explicitly treated them as a special class. If reparations efforts target that group, it is not the same as the kind of race-based admissions programs recently struck down; in fact, such efforts could survive strict scrutiny.

Of course, Justice Thomas raised that as a hypothetical. AB 7 is a way to test that hypothesis in practice. 

Jacobsen: We live in a highly technological, scientifically advanced world. There are probably fifty or sixty nations that fall into similar categories under the United Nations and other international frameworks. So arguing for further education of American citizens is not a weak argument. It is a modern argument—one that benefits individuals directly and society at large. That is why AB 7 is not just a specific proposition, but one with broader, long-term benefits to American society.

Hunter: The history of the United States—especially around issues of race—has centred repeatedly on education. Think of Brown v. Board of Education. That was a case where leading legal scholars and civil rights leaders focused on education as the battleground for dismantling segregation and Jim Crow. Denying people the right to education strikes at a fundamental human right. AB 7 returns to that same principle: education is a social good. Most people agree with that. The question is how to preserve that good in an era of budget shortfalls and scarcity, particularly in a state like California.

The challenge is threading the needle between reparative justice and cost. AB 7 attempts to do this by creating a framework that does not require new expenditures but empowers existing institutions. If, as Justice Thomas suggested, descendants of enslaved people constitute a special class, then institutions should be empowered to recognize that fact and take it into account in admissions. 

That way, universities can advance their objectives: producing a middle class of students that reflects the demographics of their state, region, nation, and world, and creating an environment where students learn from one another. Another key point is that this approach helps people understand that slavery is not simply a past event. It is an ongoing impact factor that shapes American life every single day.

Suppose you begin to bring in these new populations of students. In that case, you create a way for people to see that we are repairing the harm while also recognizing it in our future leaders, who will be educated alongside one another.

Jacobsen: Let us say you targeted a series of initiatives like AB 7 from 2020 into the 2030s as part of a palette of activist work. What other measures could be associated with this as points of change for improving the quality of life within the United States? Could these be centred in education or grow out of changes in education following AB 7, using it as a test case to build further reforms?

Hunter: One thing is that in higher education, state schools could be allowed to use AB 7 as a tool in their admissions processes without worrying about legal liabilities or lawsuits. It would give them the ability to pay special attention to applicants who can identify themselves as descendants of this particular class of Americans.

Another related idea, which I have written about, is labour acknowledgments. This also falls under social repair. Social repair is often about education—educating individuals or the entire population—for example, public awareness campaigns. I wrote about this recently in Black Enterprise for Labour Day, where I argued for labour acknowledgments.

In the United States, it is becoming increasingly common to hear land acknowledgments, a practice that has long existed in Canada. Land acknowledgments recognize that Indigenous peoples are the traditional caretakers of the land. However, we have to remember that in both Canada and the United States, European colonization involved two processes happening simultaneously: the dispossession of Indigenous land and the enslavement of Africans. Colonizers did not seize land in January and then return in June with enslaved people to work it. Both processes occurred together.

So the question is: if we recognize Indigenous dispossession through land acknowledgments, why not also recognize enslaved labour? Enslaved labour literally built Washington, D.C. 

Jacobsen: It built the White House. 

Hunter: Benjamin Banneker, a free African American mathematician and surveyor, was involved in the city’s design. Enslaved people carried out the construction. However, today, when we acknowledge land, we rarely acknowledge labour.

This could be done right now, every day. Especially in the original thirteen colonies, it is undeniable that enslaved labour built the states, their infrastructure, and their institutions. Philadelphia, the nation’s first capital, was built with enslaved labour. When George Washington and John Adams worked in the President’s House, enslaved people were the ones doing the work. Recognizing that history is part of social repair.

The overall point is that a land acknowledgment incurs no financial cost. However, it reminds people—before we begin the work of any given day—that we are in a location designed and built by enslaved Africans and their descendants. That is another way to think about social repair: informing people, making it ceremonial, and pairing it with land acknowledgments. This also emphasizes that land dispossession and enslavement were simultaneous harms. They were not separate or sequential, but intertwined.

Jacobsen: What is the scope of California’s Reparations Task Force? Could it coordinate with other task forces within the state to implement measures—beginning with Justice Clarence Thomas’s hypothetical recognition of freedmen as a special class, progressing toward practical decisions based on that recognition, and ultimately producing tangible benefits, including economic gains over the next decade?

Hunter: One thing that has been happening in California is that the state established the nation’s first statewide reparations commission. It produced a comprehensive report, and since then, other jurisdictions in California have adopted aspects of it or established their own commissions. Los Angeles has a commission, Los Angeles County is developing one, Oakland has one, and other municipalities are pursuing their own versions.

All of these efforts utilize the state’s report, which was created in collaboration with the California Department of Justice, as a legal and policy foundation. That state report provides legitimacy and a support framework, and local commissions then adapt it to their particular histories and contexts. Every part of California has a different relationship to the state’s history of slavery and racial discrimination, so each county or city is studying its own history, determining the scope of harm, and devising strategies and solutions.

Many of these local approaches will likely mirror the recommendations from the state report. At the same time, states beyond California are learning from its example. New York is establishing a reparations commission. New Jersey has pursued its own initiatives. Both are looking at California’s recommendations and process as templates for proposals.

The California state report itself is broad and detailed. It includes an extensive set of strategies and solutions across multiple domains of repair. That makes it not only a guide for California but also a model for the nation.

These efforts can unfold in various ways. For example, Evanston, Illinois, moved forward with the idea of using cannabis tax revenue to provide housing funds for Black residents who are descendants of enslaved people and long-term residents of Evanston. They focused on homeownership as their area of repair. That program has faced challenges because once you start connecting reparations directly to money, that is where the fiercest opposition arises.

Jacobsen: It becomes a matter of what is acceptable to the broader public, especially in California. Of course, there will also be pushback nationally across social media, news platforms, and political commentary. What lessons have you seen—whether through AB 7 or earlier efforts—about what works and what does not? In other words, where does opposition become insurmountable, and where has the timing or public awareness of U.S. history made people more receptive?

Hunter: What works is people simply embarking on the process. California was the first state in the nation to create a statewide reparations commission, and the sky did not fall. The state did not secede from the union. There was no riot or race war. What happened was a process: hearings, testimony, deliberation. People showed up, and they were passionate about the cause. I attended some of those hearings, and the passion was unmistakable. People disagreed about what remedies would be best, but there was no lack of seriousness or commitment.

Polling also shows growing support. For example, the Pew Research Center found that about 77 percent of Black Americans support reparations. Support within the harmed population is substantial and increasing. Where there is room for further growth is in moving beyond replication. 

Many state, city, or county-level reparations efforts have been modelled very closely on H.R. 40, the federal bill first introduced by Representative John Conyers in 1989. After his passing, it was reintroduced and championed by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, and more recently, Representative Ayanna Pressley has been a leading voice.

The next phase is greater cross-pollination between local and state initiatives and the federal effort. There should be collaboration across those levels of government. That is how reparations can grow into a more coordinated and sustainable national project.

We should not think of reparations work as simply “bubbling up” from local levels to Washington, D.C. Much of the energy creating that wave is grounded in what Representative John Conyers put forward with H.R. 40. That federal legislation remains the standard-bearer. However, people are not always told about the connections between state or local initiatives and the federal bill. California’s legislation may appear distinct, but in reality, the law establishing the state commission—and the policies or remedies it recommends—closely mirror H.R. 40.

Jacobsen: Let us touch these directly. What were the main criticisms of AB 7, and what were the responses?

Hunter: The criticisms were very similar to those raised in the Students for Fair Admissions case—that AB 7 targets a particular racial class and elevates that group at the expense of others. That was the central argument against it.

The argument for AB 7 is grounded in Justice Clarence Thomas’s own concurring opinion, which noted that considering descendants of enslaved people is not about unfairly elevating anyone. Instead, it is about addressing the unfinished work of Reconstruction and the Civil War. Descendants of enslaved people were designated as a special class after emancipation, and attending to their needs continues that unfulfilled obligation.

Jacobsen: Professor Hunter, thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate your expertise. It was nice to meet you. 

Hunter: Thank you.

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