The federal government has asked a judge to halt the United States' first reparations program that offered Black people in an Illinois city $25,000 for race-based housing discrimination, joining an existing suit that calls the program unconstitutional. The program, launched in Evanston, Illinois, in 2021, is the only one of its kind in the US, allotting $20 million to Black residents, as well as their direct descendants, who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 and suffered housing discrimination due to city ordinances, policies, or practices, per the AP. Residents, regardless of race, who saw discrimination due to the same after 1969 also qualified.
Using revenue from a local tax on legal pot sales, the city has already given out more than $7 million to hundreds of people in $25,000 increments for home repairs, down payments on property, and interest or late penalties on property in the city. The US Department of Justice, however, called the program "racially discriminatory" in a court filing on Tuesday, saying that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution because it allotted different benefits on the basis of race. "There are sound ways for a city to remedy past discrimination or direct resources to its most vulnerable citizens and neighborhoods. Simply handing out money based on race, however, is not the answer," Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.
Approximately 14% of the city's roughly 76,000 residents are Black, per the US Census, with 11% identifying as more than one race. A majority of the city's Black residents live in the city's 5th and 2nd wards, which are historically low-income areas, per a 2024 study. Reparations, a hot-button issue across the nation since the abolition of slavery in 1865, has become especially polarizing in recent years after momentum grew for similar programs across the country in the wake of George Floyd's death in police custody in 2020. At least five states, including California, New York, and Maryland, and more than a dozen cities, including Boston, Detroit, and Philadelphia, have created task forces or commissions to study slavery reparations.
None have gone as far as Evanston to actually distribute resources. Robin Rue Simmons, who pioneered the program in Evanston, said the suit and federal government's support is a "fear tactic" aimed at dissuading other governments from pursuing similar programs. The Trump administration's move to halt the program is in lockstep with a broader conservative rejection of race-based reparations. More here.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
