Justice Department Unveils National Bureau to Ensure No City Ever Accidentally Considers Reparations
The new Reparations Preemption Bureau will require every municipality in America to file paperwork proving it has not thought about compensating anyone for anything, ever.
In the wake of its effort to shut down Evanston's pioneering reparations program, the Justice Department announced the creation of a new federal office tasked with making sure no other city gets any ideas.
The Reparations Preemption Bureau will require every city council in the country to submit a signed affidavit each year certifying that it has not budgeted, discussed, or even briefly imagined any form of compensation for historical discrimination.
Cities that fail to file on time will be placed on a national watchlist alongside municipalities suspected of harboring reparations-adjacent sympathies, a designation officials say will trigger mandatory training on how to apologize for the past without doing anything about it.
"We came together to close this loophole once and for all," said a bureau spokesperson, before excusing himself to go file his own city's paperwork proving he had not personally considered reparations either.
Evanston, for its part, said it intends to keep its program running, adding that the new bureau's compliance forms were technically the first piece of federal outreach the city had received in years.