Judicial Watch: Federal Court Allows Lawsuit against Reparations Program to Move Forward—Evanston, Illinois, Gives $25,000 Gov’t Payments to Blacks Only

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that an Illinois federal court has allowed its class action civil rights lawsuit against the City of Evanston, Illinois’ reparations program to move forward.

Judicial Watch filed the class action civil rights lawsuit in May 2024, challenging Evanston’s use of race as an eligibility requirement for its “Local Reparations Restorative Housing Program,” which makes $25,000 direct cash payments to black residents and descendants of black residents who lived in Evanston between the years 1919 and 1969 (Flinn et al. v Evanston (No. 1:24-cv-04269)).

Judicial Watch argues that the program’s race-based eligibility program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. So far, 137 people have received reparations payments totaling $3.47 million.

U.S. District Judge John F. Kress rejected the city’s attempt to dismiss the case, finding that the plaintiffs have sufficient standing to pursue their constitutional claims and that requiring the plaintiffs, who are white, to first file for a program they were ineligible for due to their race was a futile gesture.

Judicial Watch argued to the court:

[T]he program’s use of a race-based eligibility requirement is presumptively unconstitutional, and remedying societal discrimination is not a compelling government interest. Nor has remedying discrimination from as many as 105 years ago or remedying intergenerational discrimination ever been recognized as a compelling government interest. Among the program’s other fatal flaws is that it uses race as a proxy for discrimination without requiring proof of discrimination.

“Evanston’s reparations program provides $25,000 cash payments to blacks only,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Constitution forbids race-based government programs like this. We welcome the court’s decision to allow this historic lawsuit to move forward against this woke, racist program.”

Judicial Watch is being assisted in the lawsuit by Christine Svenson of Chalmers, Adams, Backer & Kaufman, LLC. 

In January 2025, the City of San Francisco, in a 7-3 vote by the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco, authorized a settlement agreement in a taxpayer lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, agreeing to discontinue its discriminatory guaranteed-income program funded by taxpayer money in favor of transgender individuals with a preference for biological black and Latino men who identify as women. The agreement commits the city to pay $3,250 in attorney’s fees and costs and not to create a new guaranteed income program with the same eligibility criteria.

In September 2025, Judicial Watch announced it wrote letters to the Offices of Civil Rights in the Departments of Education and Labor requesting they investigate the collective bargaining agreement between the Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. The letters point out that the contract violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

The City of Asheville, NC, in January 2022, settled a Judicial Watch federal civil rights lawsuit after agreeing to remove all racially discriminatory provisions in a city-funded scholarship program. Additionally, the city also agreed to remove racially discriminatory eligibility provisions in a related program that provides grants to educators. 

In December 2022, Judicial Watch announced the California Court of Appeal has upheld two injunctions against California quota requirements for corporate boards. Earlier this year, two California trial courts had found (here and here) unconstitutional state quota mandates for sex, race, ethnicity, and LGBT status. On December 1, 2022, the California Court of Appeal denied (here and here) two separate emergency requests by the California Secretary of State to lift the injunctions.

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