Evanston, a Chicago suburb, has been credited with launching the country’s first government-funded reparations program for Black Americans. It has paid out nearly $5 million to 193 of the town’s Black residents over the past two years.
But now a conservative advocacy group has filed a class-action lawsuit to kill the program, arguing that it discriminates against the suburb’s non-Black residents.
The lawsuit is part of a wave of cases spurred on the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions. Conservative groups have since targeted diversity fellowships and waged a legal battle to force the federal Minority Business Development Agency to open up to White business owners.
“This program redistributes tax dollars based on race,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, the group that filed the lawsuit against Evanston. “That’s just a brazen violation of the law.”
Evanston “will vehemently defend” its reparations program, said Cynthia Vargas, the city’s communications and engagement manager. She declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court at the end of May.
Reparations advocates worry that the lawsuit could derail a national effort to compensate Black Americans for the lingering effects of hundreds of years of discrimination.
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