‘Overwhelmingly supported’: Berkeley school district Reparations Task Force presents survey results

The Reparations Task Force of Berkeley Unified School District, or BUSD, found overwhelming support for reparations in their community engagement survey last week. The survey was conducted as part of the Task Force’s process to make recommendations to the board on how to implement and fund a reparations program. According to the results presented at last week’s community engagement meeting, the Task Force found support for numerous types of reparations including financial payments to students for educational purposes and adopting additional curricula focused on chattel slavery in the U.S. “It was not about gauging the opinion of the general public through random sampling but about deepening our understanding of the specific preferences and ideas of our community members regarding reparations,” said Erika Weissinger, Task Force member and assistant professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy, in an email. Co-chair of the Task Force, John “Chip” Moore added that the survey was designed to hear from community members to get an understanding of what they knew about reparations and who wanted to get involved, which he described as “imperative.” Moore noted positive overrepresentation of Black respondents and a surprising amount of engagement with the survey. “They were aware of what...