Professor Chin Talks to Bee About Suit Over Guaranteed-Income Plan

Professor Gabriel “Jack” Chin commented for the Sacramento Bee for a March 21 story on a Sacramento County resident’s lawsuit opposing a plan by the county and the United Way to give $725 a month to 200 Black, Native American and Alaska Native families.

Plaintiffs Eva Zhou and the nonprofit Californians for Equal Rights Foundation filed a lawsuit alleging this guaranteed-basic-income program was discriminatory.

Chin told Bee reporter Cathie Anderson he was shocked that the county program’s selection criteria was based on race.

“Without a substantial additional amount of justification, you just can’t have segregated benefit programs,” Chin told Anderson. The U.S. Supreme Court, for example, likely would interpret the program appropriate if it focused on income, but not on race.

Chin is a Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law and holder of the Edward L. Barrett Jr. Endowed Chair at UC Davis School of Law. He is a prolific and much-cited criminal and immigration law scholar whose work has addressed many of the most pressing social issues of our time.