Justice Department Intervenes in Evanston Reparations Suit

Residents of Evanston, Illinois, face new legal uncertainty over their $25,000 housing grants as the federal government moves to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the program. The Justice Department was granted permission by a federal judge this month to join the case. The department alleges that the city’s distribution of funds based on race violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and the Fair Housing Act. This legal intervention puts the country’s first municipal reparations program directly in conflict with the current administration’s stance on race-based initiatives.

The program, created with the help of former city councilwoman Robin Rue Simmons, now known as N'nanba, provides financial aid to Black residents whose families were harmed by discriminatory housing policies. While the program has established a precedent in Evanston, Simmons is working to replicate the model in more than 100 other communities. Her organization chairs the local Reparations Committee and continues to push for federal redress despite the growing administrative resistance.

The legal challenge is part of a wider campaign by the Trump administration to limit federal backing for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. A lawsuit originally filed by Judicial Watch argues that the city distributes money by race without identifying specific individual harms. Michael Bekesha, who represents the plaintiffs, stated that the Constitution bars governments from picking winners and losers based entirely on race. Kiersten Pels, a Justice Department spokeswoman, reinforced this position by asserting that race-based government benefit programs are often unconstitutional and frequently violate federal civil rights law.

This federal pressure follows a warning letter sent last year to leaders in Asheville and Buncombe County, North Carolina, who were considering similar local programs. The administration's approach contrasts with international trends. In March, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans the gravest crime against humanity. More than 120 countries supported the measure, while the United States voted against it alongside Argentina and Israel.

The conflict over local programs mirrors changes in higher education. Georgetown University continues to offer admission consideration to descendants of enslaved people. However, Richard Cellini, who led a project at Harvard to identify such descendants, reported that new work in the sector has stalled. His team identified nearly 500 living descendants, but Harvard dismissed the project days after the administration's January 2025 anti-DEI order. Kirt von Daacke, a historian at the University of Virginia, noted that he sees no new scholarship programs since the president returned to office.

Despite the legal hurdles, some benefits have already reached recipients. Juan Woolfolk, a 36-year-old Georgetown descendant, is using a $10,000 scholarship to study museum studies at Southern University at New Orleans. Virginia Theological Seminary makes annual cash payments to descendants of people who labored on its campus. The endowment funding these payments has grown from $1.7 million to $2.8 million since 2019. In Evanston, Joe Martin, a 46-year-old Delta flight attendant and grant recipient, said the government resisted the program, adding that 40 acres and a mule did not go down the way it was supposed to.