The Evanston program, which started in 2019, offers Black residents who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969, and their descendants, up to $25,000 in housing assistance. Robin Rue Simmons, chair of the Evanston Reparations Committee, emphasized the city’s readiness to defend the program, describing the lawsuit as an attack on the broader reparations movement and efforts toward racial equity and civil rights.
Judicial Watch’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of six individuals whose ancestors lived in Evanston during the covered period but do not identify as Black. The lawsuit argues that the program uses race as a proxy for experiencing discrimination without requiring specific evidence of such harm.
