Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

San Francisco City, Schools Sued Over Race-Based Welfare Programs

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The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER) is suing the city of San Francisco and several other government entities over guaranteed income programs that discriminate on the basis of race, the group announced in a Thursday press release.

The lawsuit challenges the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Unified School District, the University of California San Francisco and the California Health and Human Services Agency over four government programs which offer routine basic income payments to individuals on the basis of race. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and California’s state constitution both ban preferential treatment on the basis of race, CFER is arguing.

“In 2020, 9.65 million Californian voters resoundingly rejected racial preferences by voting down Prop. 16. But the progressive status quo seems to be unconcerned with observing the law and following public will,” Wenyuan Wu, a CFER spokesman, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“In San Francisco, the rolling out and implementation of these four so-called guaranteed income programs are a categorical misuse of public taxpayer funds to discriminate unlawfully on the basis of race and secondarily on the basis of gender/sexual orientation by selecting beneficiaries in a racially or gender-based exclusionary manner. The flip side of preferential treatment is discrimination. The law is the law, and this is why we are standing up to them in the court of law with this timely lawsuit,” he said.

California’s Abundant Birth Project, one of the targets of the lawsuit, offers unconditional cash payments of up to $1,000 to black and Pacific Islander mothers in an effort to reduce pre-term births. San Francisco’s Guaranteed Income for Trans People offers up to $1,200 each month for up to 18 months and prioritizes black and indigenous people and people of color.

The lawsuit also challenges the Guaranteed Income Pilot for artists, which CFER says prioritizes applicants on the basis of race and gender expression, as well as the Black Economic Equity Movement, which offers black people aged 18-24 $500 per month for a year.

“The California Constitution unambiguously prohibits public agencies from treating individuals differently on the basis of race,” Frank Xu, president of CFER, said in a press release. “But these entities ignore the law and offer race-preferential programs under the disguise of equity. We are proud to participate in this historic legal challenge to safeguard equal treatment as the lead plaintiff.”

The American Civil Rights Project is representing CFER and the individual taxpayers who joined in the lawsuit.