Judicial Watch, a conservative legal action group, Thursday filed a class action lawsuit challenging Evanston’s first-in-the-nation reparations program.
The federal court suit challenges on equal protection grounds the use of race as an eligibility requirement for a city program that makes $25,000 payments to residents and direct descendants of residents who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969.
The suit claims that remedying societal discrimination is not a compelling governmental interest and that the city’s use of race as an eligibility requirement is not narrowly tailored.
The suit argues that the city’s program does not limit eligibility to persons who actually experienced discrimination and therefore is overinclusive and that the city failed to consider race-neutral alternatives, such as requiring that prospective recipients show that they or their ancestors actually experienced housing discrimination during that time period.
Six named plaintiffs in the case are all persons whose ancestors lived in Evanston during the relevant time period but do not identify as Black or African American.
The reparations program was initially adopted by the City Council in 2019 with rules for distributing the fund adopted in 2021. It is currently funded from the tax on cannabis sales and the real estate transfer tax.
Most persons who sought reparations payments as “ancestors” — Black residents who had lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969 — have already received payments.
The city is starting to distribute payments to several hundred more persons who have filed claims as descendants of Black residents who lived in the city during that time.
Judicial Watch has filed a number of other suits challenging what it claims are racially discriminatory local and state government programs.
In an emailed response to an Evanston Now inquiry about the city’s response to the suit, city spokesperson Cynthia Vargas said the city “does not comment on the specifics of pending litigation, but we will vehemently defend any lawsuit brought against our City’s reparations program.”
The only thing surprising about this news is that it took so long for a right wing legal group to actually file the lawsuit. And the truth is, they are probably to win. Anyone who has been paying attention to this sort of stuff for the last decade would know better than to think that the reparations program would not result a) in the City getting sued and b) losing and having to pay 6 figures in legal fees to whoever filed the lawsuit.
Nothing surprising, it is a textbook ironic defense of “it’s not fair to me, if you’re trying to make it fair for others.”
Denying or dismissing past wrongs of Americans is a misguided attempt to evade responsibility. True patriotism understands that a nation’s strength lies in acknowledging and learning from its history, not erasing it. The ignorance of whomever drafted this suit lacks a basic eighth grade understanding of our Constitution. Our government’s duty is to serve ‘We the People’—all people—ensuring progress includes active efforts towards reconciliation and healing. It’s about collective accountability and the pursuit of a more equitable future for every citizen. This might be enough of an uncomplicated way for these I assume educated lawyers to understand.
Equality in opportunity isn’t about starting the race: and then after the runners have enough of a lead allowing new racers to join; it’s ensuring everyone begins from the same line, not miles behind. Fairness demands equal footing. All fifty states need to adopt passing a mandatory standardized Civics class to graduate. The hypocrisy of the ones who most aggressively defend “respect” for the National Anthem at Sporting events, in their actual lives are the ones who fail the most to respect and understand what the American flag represents.
My concern with this type of program is that it’s difficult to draw a line. Women were not able to get a mortgage on their own during that timeframe, so should women get reparations? Should women get reparations for pay inequity? Where does it end? There’s a reason Evanston was the first to have a reparations program. Every other municipality saw it was the wrong thing to do. I’m not surprised legal action is being taken nor should anyone else.
Our elected council and mayor should have seen this coming and budgeted for the legal defense costs. As far as I can tell they didn’t and this one is going to be costly as it makes its way through the lower courts to as high (and expensive) as you can go. So how is council going to pay for this? Cut programs or raise taxes? Not likely with this short-sighted group. Likely they won’t do anything and just kick this down the road.
A while back didn’t the City of Evanston’s former Corporate Counsel (Legal) Nick Cummings give a warning to the City Council regarding potential legal perils of changing the funding mechanism for Evanston’s Reparations program (a warning based on the research-based opinion of outside legal counsel that he agreed with as a legal professional)? And didn’t a certain Councilperson who is not an attorney go on record trying to disregard (and in my opinion disrespect) the professional legal opinion of Counsel Cummings and suggest that Evanston should go forward anyway, with the use of additional funding methods (that were advised against by Evanston’s Legal Dept., again advised against based on the legal research of outside counsel)?
This is my recollection from what was reported a while back by Evanston Now and Evanston Roundtable in news coverage of public meetings on reparations funding. Please correct me if anyone has a better knowledge of what I have stated above.
To be opposed to using legal funding methods that experts suggest are at risk of not holding up in court should not be confused with what any individual wishes Evanston could do regarding Reparations or how they feel about Reparations. I am sure our Legal Dept., past and present, wholeheartedly support Evanston’s Reparations program.
My recollection was that the initial formula for funding Evanston’s Reparations program was specifically designed, on a legal basis, to avoid opening any clear legal
Hi JB,
Two years ago Ald. Devon Reid (8th) proposed taking $5M from the general fund for reparations.
Then Corporation Counsel Nick Cummings advised against doing that, saying it would be legally safer to use a home-rule tax, like the real estate transfer tax, instead, because the city has more discretion over how that money is spent, so using race as a criterion for the spending would be less risky if the money came from the transfer tax. There was also a matter of the symmetry between the reparations program designed to address housing discrimination and using a tax on housing to fund it.
In the end, the council voted to do what Cummings recommended — allocating funds from the RETT for reparations.
So, Cummings won that argument, but the city has now been sued anyway. Of course anybody can file a suit. The question now becomes whether the way Cummings crafted the reparations program will ultimately lead the courts to reject the suit and let the city’s reparations program continue.
— Bill
I thought they already had to prove their ancestors suffered housing discrimination.
Nope. Just that the ancestor(s) were Black and lived here during the 1919-1969 time period.
— Bill