Newsom Vetoes Bill Related to Reparations in College Admissions

California governor Gavin Newsom on Monday vetoed a bill that would have allowed colleges in the state to give admissions preference to descendants of enslaved people, saying that colleges are already able to do so if they choose, according to the Associated Press.

The bill’s author, Democratic Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, criticized the governor’s decision in a statement.

“While the Trump Administration threatens our institutions of higher learning and attacks the foundations of diversity and inclusivity, now is not the time to shy away from the fight to protect students who have descended from legacies of harm and exclusion,” he said.

The bill is one of several that have been proposed over the past two years in response to a 2023 task force report on how California could provide reparations to descendants of Black people who were in the U.S. during the 1800s. Along with the admissions bill, Newsom also rejected a bill to reserve first-time homebuyer loans for descendants of enslaved people, as well as a bill to guarantee investigations for Californians who say the government unjustly seized their family’s property on the basis of race.

However, he did sign a bill allocating $6 million to a study about how to determine whether a person is descended from an enslaved person, which will be conducted by California State University.