A conservative group’s lawsuit against a reparations program in Evanston, Illinois, that provides some Black residents with cash payments and housing assistance, has left advocates for reparations worried this could be the first of many attacks on their efforts to redress the harms of slavery, segregation and systemic racism in the United States.
The complaint, filed against the city last month by Judicial Watch, claims Evanston’s program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, and asks the court to declare the city’s “use of race as an eligibility requirement for participation in the program to be unconstitutional.”