Biden Wants Free Tuition for Students At Historically Black Colleges As Reparation For Slavery

President Joe Biden will pursue free college tuition for students who attend historically black colleges, universities and community colleges as a form of slavery reparations.

President Joe Biden’s administration will move forward with policies beneficial to African-Americans as Congress considers creating a commission to study the merits of direct reparation payments, White House adviser Cedric Richmond told Axios in an interview. The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Feb. 17 regarding legislation that would create the commission.

“If you start talking about free college tuition to [historically black colleges and universities] and you start talking about free community college in Title I and all of those things, I think that you are well on your way,” Richmond said when asked about reparations, according to Axios.

“We have to start breaking down systemic racism and barriers that have held people of color back and especially African-Americans,” he continued. “We have to do stuff now.”

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He added that there is urgency to begin pursuing policies that “break down barriers” immediately regardless of how Congress decides to proceed with direct payment reparations.

“We don’t want to wait on a study,” Richmond said, according to Axios. “We’re going to start acting now.”

The legislation working its way through Congress is sponsored by Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. Biden endorsed the legislation during the 2020 presidential election.

“The uncomfortable truth is that the United States owes its position as the most powerful nation in the world to its slave-owning past,” Jackson Lee said in a statement on the day of the hearing.