January 23, 2026

Attorney General Nicholas Brown
Office of the Attorney General
State of Washington

Dear Attorney General Brown,

I write to you at a moment when history, law, and moral responsibility converge.

My name is Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter. I am a Professor of Sociology and African American Studies and the author of Radical Reparations: Healing the Soul of a Nation (HarperCollins/Amistad). I respectfully request your review of the Washington State Department of Commerce’s administration of the Reparations Study Request for Proposals (RFP No. 26-33740-001), not as a disappointed bidder, but as a scholar and citizen concerned with whether our institutions are prepared to carry out repair with the same integrity that justice demands.

Reparations are not merely a policy question. Reparations are a constitutional, historical, and ethical undertaking. Therefore, the governing of reparations shapes its legitimacy for generations. The record reflects a series of procedural failures that, taken together, form a troubling and deeply concerning pattern.

My organization, Doctor Blackness Enterprises LLC, timely submitted a proposal by the October 15, 2025, deadline, in the precise manner specified by the RFP. Commerce did not acknowledge receipt. Only after I initiated contact on November 6, 2025, did the agency disclose that my proposal had been quarantined by its internal systems as “malware” and was therefore unavailable to evaluators for more than three weeks—spanning the entire published evaluation window.

Commerce later conceded this delay. Yet no documented mitigation, normalization, or re-evaluation protocol was ever produced. Instead, the agency asserted, without contemporaneous records, that it had somehow “ensured” equivalent review time. In a competition that ultimately involved only three proposals, the exclusion of one-third of the field from contemporaneous evaluation for over twenty days is not a technical footnote. It is a harmful structural defect.

Following the public announcement of the Apparent Successful Bidder on November 25, 2025, I submitted a timely written request for a debriefing on December 1, 2025, as required by Washington law and the RFP itself, as a prerequisite to protest. That request was denied—twice—on the theory that the clock ran from a private notification date rather than the public announcement. Only after I retained legal counsel did Commerce reverse course and offer a debrief, characterizing it as a “courtesy,” even while acknowledging that other unsuccessful proposers had received debriefings without such escalation.

Rights described as mandatory became discretionary. Process guaranteed on paper became contingent in practice. Financial and legal burdens were shifted onto me simply to obtain a process that should have been afforded as a matter of due process, not contingency.

When the written debrief was finally provided, it omitted any discussion of the delayed proposal release, the evaluator's awareness of that delay, mitigation efforts, or the internal compliance review. Commerce further confirmed that no written evaluator comments existed for my proposal at all—an extraordinary absence in a qualitative, equity-centered solicitation intended to shape the future of reparations policy in Washington State.

Additional concerns arise regarding conflict-of-interest screening and subject-matter rigor. The selected contractor’s core background lies in general diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting, rather than in reparations research, historical accounting, or intergenerational economic harm. At the same time, public records reflect prior professional and advisory relationships between the selected firm and officials associated with reparations efforts, without any clear documentation of disclosure, recusal, or independent ethics review. The RFP imposes disclosure obligations on proposers; it is unclear whether equivalent scrutiny was applied to those charged with evaluation and oversight.

This process matters because its consequences will echo far beyond a single contract.

Washington stands to become only the fourth state in the nation to undertake a comprehensive statewide reparations study. Its methods will be studied. Its standards will be cited. Its legitimacy will either fortify or fracture public trust in the very idea of repair. Community members have reportedly raised substantial supplemental funding—bringing total support for this study near one million dollars—an extraordinary act of faith in public institutions to handle historical truth with care, rigor, and fairness.

Reparations cannot be built on administrative opacity.
Repair cannot rest on procedural shortcuts.
Equity cannot survive when the process itself becomes uneven.

For these reasons, I respectfully ask your office to review:

1. Commerce’s handling of the proposal quarantine and the absence of documented mitigation;

2. The denial and delayed granting of debrief rights are in apparent conflict with statutory and RFP standards.

3. The adequacy of conflict-of-interest disclosure and recusal protocols; and

4. The sufficiency of record preservation, oversight, and compliance review in a paused procurement of exceptional public consequence.

This request is not about reversing an award. It is about safeguarding the architecture of justice at the very moment a state attempts to give it form. As the first Black Attorney General in Washington’s history, your stewardship carries singular resonance in ensuring that the mechanisms of repair are as sound as the moral claims that animate them.

Reparations demand more than aspiration.
They demand institutional courage.
They demand procedural truth.

I thank you for your consideration and for your service. I stand ready to provide any additional materials that may assist your review.

Respectfully,

Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter
Professor of Sociology and African American Studies
Author, Radical Reparations: Healing the Soul of a Nation
Doctor Blackness Enterprises LLC

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