Reparations Bill Returns to Congress as Trump Leads Charge Against Racial Equity in Government

Rep. Ayanna Pressley will reintroduce H.R. 40, federal legislation to study reparations for slavery, on Wednesday as the Trump administration leads a wide-scale rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the federal government.

The bill, which had 130 co-sponsors in the last session, is not likely to advance under the Republican-controlled Congress, and the White House has previously been opposed to any reparations efforts.

“We find ourselves in a moment of emboldened white supremacy and anti-Black racism, and a weaponized Supreme Court that is actively gutting protections and progress that has been made,” Pressley, D-Mass., said in an exclusive interview.

She described the country as being at “a painful inflection point.” She added, “We have a hostile administration working actively to roll back decades of progress and more recent progress when it comes to our civil rights.”

Last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning DEI policies in federal agencies, calling them illegal and discriminatory, leading to federal workers being placed on leave and emboldening some of America’s largest companies to walk back corporate equity promises.

Despite the roadblocks, Pressley said it’s critical to keep pushing H.R. 40.

“I’m working actively to blunt the assaults from a hostile administration that means harm to everyone that calls this country home, but will have a disparate impact on Black Americans,” Pressley said, “because throughout history, it has been proven that when other folks catch a cold, Black folks, figuratively, catch pneumonia.”

H.R. 40 has been introduced continually over the past three decades, and Pressley is officially taking over from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, who died last summer from cancer. Lee’s daughter, Erica Lee Carter, who completed the remainder of Lee’s term, approached Pressley about taking over the bill.

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H.R. 40 left the House Judiciary Committee for the first time in 2021, after a movement spurred by the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Cities and states have been increasingly considering reparations efforts, with California passing the first state reparations package in the country last fall.

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In 2021, 77% of Black Americans said they supported issuing reparations tied to slavery, while only 18% of white Americans agreed, according to the Pew Research Center.

When asked about federal reparations in a 2019 interview with The Hill, Trump said, “I don’t see it happening.”

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