As Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff heads into a competitive re-election fight, a recently hired member of his campaign operation is drawing attention for a Gates Foundation-backed research project aimed at shifting white public opinion on reparations.
Bryant Moy, who has been brought on as Ossoff’s data and analytics director ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to study how information about racially restrictive housing covenants might influence support for reparative policies, according to Breitbart News. Moy also holds a position as an associate professor at New York University and serves as a principal investigator at the Urban Politics Lab.
The project, titled “Can Knowledge of Racially Restrictive Covenants Increase Support for Redress?”, is currently listed as under review. In a description of the work, Moy outlines a nationally representative survey experiment examining whether awareness of the historical use of restrictive covenants — tools once deployed by white homeowners to keep people of color out of their neighborhoods — can boost backing for reparations.
“Public support for reparations among white Americans remains divided,” Moy writes on his personal website, describing one of his studies. “This study examines whether informational and visual interventions that present the structural roots of racial inequality can increase support for reparative policies.”
Moy’s biography on the Urban Politics Lab website says he studies urban and local politics with a focus on racial inequality, local governance, and public opinion, using large-scale datasets, survey and field experiments, and causal inference methods to understand how local institutions “produce—or undermine—equity and democratic responsiveness in multiracial communities.”
Ossoff’s Own Record on Reparations
The staffer’s research lands amid renewed scrutiny of Ossoff’s own position on the issue. In August, Fox News resurfaced a 2019 interview in which the senator said he supports reparations, telling the host that “there is a debt unpaid.”
“There is a debt unpaid. I think it is a very, very difficult question: how to pay it,” Ossoff said at the time. When the host replied that the question should be how the debt gets paid rather than whether it should be, Ossoff agreed.
In that same interview, Ossoff invoked the unfulfilled post-Civil War promise of “forty acres and a mule.” Yet he has not signed on as a cosponsor of legislation from Sen. Cory Booker that would create a commission to study and develop reparation proposals. That bill, most recently introduced on January 9, 2025, has 20 cosponsors — all Democrats, plus Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with them. The list includes Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla of California, Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin of Maryland, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
The Fox News report also noted that progressive organizations such as the Movement for Black Lives and the Democratic Socialists of America have made reparations part of their platforms.
A Battleground Race in Georgia
Ossoff is set to face Republican Rep. Mike Collins in November. Polling has shown the incumbent with a consistent but somewhat narrowing lead. Outgoing Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has formally thrown his support behind Collins.
“Jon Ossoff’s far-left agenda doesn’t represent Georgia values, and the future of our state and country demands a different direction,” Kemp said in a statement.
The combination of Moy’s research portfolio and Ossoff’s past comments gives Republicans a fresh line of attack in a state where the senator has worked to cultivate a moderate image. Whether the reparations issue resonates with Georgia voters — or remains a secondary concern behind the economy and other kitchen-table topics — could shape how aggressively both campaigns press the theme in the closing stretch before Election Day.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/15/democrat-jon-ossoff-staffer-embraced-reparations-gates-foundation-grant-study-he-coauthored/