A bill has been introduced  in Salem that seeks to create a task force to study whether or not the state is complicit in denying civil rights and opportunities to African Americans.  No other race or minority group is listed.

According to House Bill 2995  “Sets up a task force to look at ways in which the state can give reparations for past acts of racism to African-American people who live in the state. 
Establishes the Task Force on Reparations and directs the task force to study and develop
proposals for financial and nonfinancial reparations for Oregonians of African-American descent, develop appropriate methods for educating the public about the task force’s findings and recommend appropriate remedies based on the task force’s findings.
The task force would look for the following:

” …The task force shall identify governmental actions that have resulted in harm to
Oregonians of African-American descent in the following categories of systemic discrimination:
(A) Enslavement;
(B) Racial terror;
(C) Political disenfranchisement;
(D) Housing segregation;
(E) Separate and unequal education;
(F) Racism related to the environment and infrastructure;
(G) Pathologizing the Black family;
(H) Control over creative cultural and intellectual life;
(I) Stolen labor and hindered opportunity;
(J) An unjust legal system;
(K) Mental and physical harm and neglect; and
(L) The wealth gap.

The bill continues: (4) The task force may:
(a) Identify methods for eliminating racial bias in employment and advancement, especially for Oregonians of African-American descent who seek public employment or promotion
to higher paying positions in government;
(b) Identify methods for eliminating anti-Black discrimination policies in artistic, cultural, creative, athletic and intellectual life; and
(c) Identify individuals who should be compensated financially and with services, at no
charge to the individual, that seek to remedy damage to the individual’s mental or physical
health from anti-Black healthcare systems and treatments, such as forced sterilization,
medical experimentation, racist sentencing disparities, police violence, environmental racism and race-related stress that causes psychological harm.

At this point this is only a bill-not a law and should it pass it will only establish a “Task Force” to study the issue.

You can read the bill in its entirety here: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/HB2995/Introduced

What are your thoughts on reparations in Oregon? You can share your thoughts with your representatives in Salem.

Senator Dick Anderson:  https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/anderson

Representative David Gomberg: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/gomberg