Evanston’s reparations program violates equal protection in U.S. Constitution, lawsuit claims

A conservative group claims in a class-action lawsuit against the city of Evanston that the city’s reparations program meant to repay historical wrongs against Black residents violates the U.S. Constitution. The nonprofit organization Judicial Watch filed the federal lawsuit last week on behalf of six residents who are not Black but whose relatives lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969 — the 50-year period of housing discrimination that caused segregation of Black residents in the city. The residents say in the lawsuit that Evanston’s first-in-the-nation reparations plan violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment because the program uses race as a requirement for eligibility. Approved by the Evanston City Council in 2021, the program provides up to $25,000 to Black residents with ties to the community between 1919 and 1969. Payments were initially designated only for housing costs, but the city expanded the program last year to include an option for direct cash payments. The “program is nothing more than a ploy to redistribute tax dollars to individuals based on race,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “This scheme unconstitutionally discriminates against anyone who does not identify as Black or African American. This class action,...