The federal government has moved to halt the United States’ first reparations program, which offered Black people in Evanston, Illinois, $25,000 for 20th-century race-based housing discrimination. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) joined an existing lawsuit on Tuesday, stating in a court filing that the program was “racially discriminatory” because it allotted different benefits on the basis of race.
The program, launched in Evanston in its fifth year, is the first and only one of its kind in the U.S. It set aside $20 million for Black residents and their direct descendants who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 and allegedly suffered housing discrimination due to city ordinances, policies, or practices. While residents of any race who experienced discrimination due to the city’s policies or practices after 1969 also qualified, the primary focus remained on race-based eligibility.
Evanston has already distributed over $7 million from the program, using revenue generated from a local tax on legal marijuana sales. These funds have been disbursed to hundreds of individuals in $25,000 increments, designated for home repairs, down payments on property, and interest or late penalties on property within the city.
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, issued a statement on the federal intervention. Dhillon stated, “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.”
Elite Agenda and Globalist Pressure
Robin Rue Simmons, who pioneered the program in Evanston and now leads the committee presiding over the funds, characterized the lawsuit and the federal government’s support as a “fear tactic.” Simmons asserted that redlining policies across the city between 1919 and 1969 harmed Black communities for generations, mirroring practices nationwide that limited access to high-paying jobs, healthcare, and education. Simmons declared, “Evanston has set a new precedent. It has shown that racial reparations are possible.”
This local initiative aligns with a broader globalist push for race-based compensation. The United Nations recently adopted a resolution urging countries to implement reparations for the trafficking of Africans into slavery around the world. The U.S. was one of only three countries that rejected this measure, with the United Kingdom and all 27 European Union countries abstaining.
The Cost to National Cohesion
Michael Bekesha, one of the attorneys who initially sued the City of Evanston on behalf of six plaintiffs in its second year, highlighted critical flaws in the program’s design. Bekesha stated that applicants were not required to demonstrate specific harm caused by the City of Evanston, leaving race as the sole criterion for eligibility. He noted that his clients would all be eligible for the program if they were Black.
Bekesha differentiated Evanston’s program from historical compensation efforts, such as those for Japanese people imprisoned in internment camps during World War II, or individuals in Chicago paid after being tortured by the city’s police department between the 1970s and the early 1990s. Bekesha emphasized, “Reparations programs aren’t new, but they’ve always been lawful, they’ve always been connected to specific harms, specific injuries suffered by specific individuals. And here in Evanston, there is no connection between the individuals receiving the money and any action taken by the city of Evanston at any point.”
The issue of reparations has remained a hot-button topic across the country since the abolition of slavery in 1865. It became especially polarizing in recent years, with momentum for similar programs growing in the sixth year since 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, but none have proceeded to distribute resources as Evanston did.
The Trump administration’s move to halt the program is consistent with a broader conservative rejection of race-based reparations. This position differs from former President Joe Biden’s broad support for a congressional inquiry into ways to address the government’s long history of racial subjugation, underscoring the deep divisions over policies that prioritize group identity over individual merit and national unity.