Are reparations the answer?

In 2021, the city of Evanston, Illinois, established a program to make reparations to Black residents for historic housing discrimination. The first phase of the project gave 16 residents $25,000 each for home repairs or property costs. The Evanston program was one topic explored at the recent Center for Race, Inequality, and Social Equity Studies symposium “Are Reparations the Answer?” in which experts across disciplines explored the case for restitution to Black Americans legally, economically, and ethically. Daniel Fryer, an assistant professor of law and philosophy at the University of Michigan and a speaker at the forum, praised the Evanston example because it targeted a specific injustice that the city was trying to repair. Fryer argued that practitioners must consider the different avenues to attain justice. “An essential question is, what are we trying to repair?” said Fryer, who also serves as a board member for the Board of Commissioners’ Advisory Council on Reparations in Washtenaw County in Michigan. “In order to repair something, we need to know what’s broken, and it also helps to know why it’s broken.” “An essential question is, what are we trying to repair? In order to repair something, we need to know what’s broken,...