As if it doesn’t have more important things to do, the New York
City Council is considering legislation that advances the
ridiculous agenda of the slave reparations movement.
The measure, sponsored by Councilman Charles Barron, would
require that companies doing business with the city disclose
whether they profited from slavery over 140 years ago. Like similar
disclosure laws in Chicago and Los Angeles, the proposed ordinance
would not ban companies from continuing to seek city contracts. The
goal presumably is just to set the historical record straight.
However, the legislative intent is clear: Lay the foundation for
a raft of costly lawsuits. Indeed, the justification for the
Chicago disclosure law is to get “information as a preliminary form
of discovery in an upcoming lawsuit.” Reparations suits can
potentially bankrupt businesses or, at the very least, leave
consumers holding the tab for huge settlements. A 2004 lawsuit
seeking damages from 19 corporations puts the value of slave labor
at $1.4 trillion.
Besides seeking money through corporate shakedowns, reparations
advocates are lobbying Congress to establish a radically expensive
entitlement program for 35 million African Americans.
But since Congress is not about to seriously consider saddling
taxpayers with another entitlement, activists are focusing on
anti-corporate lawsuits. Such litigation helps legitimize the
reparations cause in Congress. More important, lawsuits can raise
tons of money to subsidize the movement — and line the pockets of
self-serving trial lawyers. Sniffing the possibility for large
profits, high-powered lawyers are preparing to weigh in on the
issue including Johnnie Cochran (of O.J. Simpson fame), Richard
Scruggs (a key architect of the tobacco settlement), and Dennis C.
Sweet III (who reaped millions from the “phen-fen” diet drug
lawsuit).
Whatever money might be gained though, slave reparations
lawsuits are completely without legal and ethical merit.
Holding contemporary corporations accountable for business
transactions that occurred a century and a half ago is absurd. Few
companies even have records from that period because they are not
legally required to do so. Furthermore, many of the corporations
being sued have at best a tenuous connection to the 19th century
firms involved in slave-related business. Reparations suits are
also unconstitutional. As tragic as slavery was, it was legal in
the U.S. between 1789 and 1865. The Constitution prohibits ex post
facto laws, which are laws that criminalize conduct that was legal
when originally performed.
The main objection against reparations is moral. The notion of
paying monetary penalties for what one’s ancestor did is
nonsensical. And if penalties were paid, the people getting it are
not the victims but their distant descendants, many of whom are
more prosperous than those who would have to pay.
It obviously defies logic to demand payment for work performed
by long-dead generations. Nevertheless, the reparations movement
grows because enough politicians and lawyers stand to profit from
it. In addition, corporations targeted for potential litigation
contribute to the problem by foolishly caving in to activists’
demands.
In January, Chicago-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced
that it would create a $5 million college scholarship fund for
African Americans in Louisiana. In compliance with the city
ordinance, JPMorgan disclosed that two of its predecessor banks
allowed slaves to be used as collateral on loans to Louisiana
plantation owners. The only reason JPMorgan is even “linked” to
these dealings is that it acquired Bank One the previous year. Bank
One, in turn, is “linked” because it acquired the Louisiana banks
that made the antebellum loans through a series of bank mergers in
the 20th century.
Although JPMorgan is not tied to these slave-related dealings,
it established the scholarship fund in an attempt to appease the
reparations lobby. It didn’t work. Reparations advocates
immediately denounced the donation as “insulting” and a “joke.”
Lionel Jean Baptiste, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in a
reparations suit, said, “To give back $5 million does not begin to
make up for the tremendous amount of wealth that JPMorgan Chase
extracted from the enslaved Africans.”
Activists are lining up more corporate stooges. Chicago City
Councilwoman Dorothy Tillman, the city’s reparations crusader, is
threatening to cancel a $500 million refinancing deal with Bank of
America because it is allegedly tied to slavery through a
long-defunct 19th century bank acquired through mergers.
Chicago is a warning to New York. If the City Council approves
Barron’s disclosure bill, the city will be deluged with activists,
lawyers, and shakedown campaigns for years to come. Litigation, not
racial reconciliation, will be the end result.
