Pro-reparations group calls for dismissal of lawsuit against Evanston program

Reparations United and its executive director, Kamm Howard, have come to the defense of Evanston’s reparations program amid a lawsuit that alleges the city’s use of race to determine benefits is unconstitutional. A May 30 news release from Howard and the group argues the suit, filed by the conservative group, Judicial Watch, should be dismissed outright. It states the program is constitutional because the funding is being given in compensation for decades of racial housing policies. Howard also pushes back against assertions in the lawsuit that state reparations are not needed because no law was broken during the time Black families were impacted by redlining. “The lawsuit should be thrown out on its face! As well as those who wrote it!” the news release says. Howard linked the push for reparations to the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism, which designated the Transatlantic Slave Trade, slavery, apartheid and colonialism as crimes against humanity. He argues this then became the basis for reparations efforts like those in Evanston as rectification for past crimes. Evanston’s program focuses on Jim Crow era housing policies, a parallel to apartheid, according to Howard. The program began with restorative housing where eligible applicants could apply...