Justice Department joins lawsuit to end the nation’s first reparations program

The Justice Department announced in June that it would join a lawsuit seeking to end Evanston, Illinois’ reparations program, the first in the country to pay Black residents for historical housing discrimination, according to NPR’s reporting on the case.

Evanston’s city council approved the program in 2021 after research led by then-councilmember Robin Rue Simmons into why the city’s Black population was shrinking. A commissioned historical report found that a 1921 zoning ordinance confined Black residents to a single neighborhood while banks refused them mortgages there, blocking the accumulation of home equity and wealth across generations. The program pays eligible recipients $25,000 grants, funded by roughly $20 million raised through taxes on cannabis sales and real estate transfers. To qualify, applicants must be Black and show that they or an ancestor lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969, the period the report identified as the peak of housing segregation there. More than 300 people have received grants so far, which recipients have used for home repairs and other investments, according to NPR.

The conservative legal group Judicial Watch sued the city in 2024 on behalf of six plaintiffs, arguing the program violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee by limiting eligibility to Black applicants. Judicial Watch attorney Michael Bekesha said the plaintiffs would qualify for the $25,000 grants “but for the color of their skin,” and argued the program requires no proof that an applicant or their family actually experienced discrimination.

The Justice Department’s civil rights division joined the suit in June. Division chief Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement that “simply handing out money based on race … is race discrimination, pure and simple,” and warned that allowing Evanston’s program to continue would set “a slippery slope.” “We’re going to put a stop to it,” Dhillon said, according to NPR.

The case, Flinn v. Evanston, is pending in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Judge John F. Kness denied the city’s motion to dismiss the suit in March, allowing it to proceed, and Evanston filed its formal answer to the complaint on May 8. The Justice Department’s motion to intervene followed a month later, in June.

Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss has defended the program as compensation for documented, specific discrimination rather than a general race-based benefit. Robin Rue Simmons said the grants are intended to help Black residents “build wealth” and remain in the city their families were pushed out of.

Northwestern University professor Alvin Tillery called the case “the most important civil rights story that no one has heard of,” saying a loss for Evanston could threaten civil rights protections well beyond reparations programs. Howard University law professor Justin Hansford said the outcome carries “huge implications as to whether or not this is something that is going to be seen as unconstitutional,” and said he has advised other cities considering reparations to build a documented historical record of discrimination, since Evanston’s defense rests on that evidence.

The Trump administration has separately moved to eliminate federal programs it identifies as promoting racial equity. No trial date has been set in the Evanston case.