The Department of Justice moved Wednesday to intervene in a federal lawsuit challenging Evanston, Illinois’s reparations program, alleging the city’s practice of distributing cash payments and housing assistance exclusively to Black residents violates the U.S. Constitution and federal fair housing law.
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division filed a proposed complaint in intervention contending the program runs afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fair Housing Act.
“Under the pretext of paying reparations for events more than 100 years ago, the City of Evanston has chosen to distribute millions of dollars in cash and housing benefits to people because of the color of their skin or the color of the skin of their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. “It is race discrimination, pure and simple. And it is illegal.”
U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros for the Northern District of Illinois echoed that argument, saying the Constitution requires government to treat citizens as individuals rather than as members of a racial class.
“Distributing public funds based on an individual’s ancestry or race divides the citizenry and establishes the very hierarchy the Equal Protection Clause was designed to dismantle,” Boutros said.
Evanston adopted the Local Reparations Restorative Housing Program in 2019. Under its terms, Black persons who lived in the city as adults at any point between 1919 and 1969, as well as their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, are eligible to receive $25,000 in cash payments or financial assistance to purchase, repair, or maintain a primary residence in Evanston.
The city has paid out more than $5 million to date and has plans to distribute millions more as additional funds become available.
The Justice Department said Evanston has not identified specific acts of discrimination that the payments are intended to remedy, and the program does not require recipients to show that they or their ancestors personally experienced discrimination while living in the city. Race alone determines eligibility.
The federal move follows a private lawsuit filed in 2024 by descendants of Evanston residents who lived there during the same 1919 to 1969 window but were excluded from the program because they are not Black. The plaintiffs, represented by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch, challenged their exclusion as an equal protection violation in Flinn, et al. v. City of Evanston.
A federal judge rejected Evanston’s motion to dismiss the case in March 2026, ruling the plaintiffs had sufficient standing to pursue their claims.
The DOJ opened its own investigation of the program that same month under the Equal Protection Clause and the Fair Housing Act. Evanston declined to cooperate with the investigation, according to the department, prompting the United States to seek intervention in the ongoing lawsuit.
A spokesperson for the city said Evanston “maintains its position on the legality of the Evanston Reparations Program” and declined further comment on the active litigation.
Evanston’s program has drawn national attention as the first municipally funded reparations effort of its kind in the country. Legal scholars and civil rights advocates have disagreed sharply on whether race-based government programs can survive equal protection review under current Supreme Court precedent.
