A federal judge denied Evanston, Illinois' bid to throw out a lawsuit challenging the city's race-based reparations program, clearing the way for a legal fight over whether handing $25,000 checks to residents based on skin color violates the Constitution.
U.S. District Judge John F. Kness ruled Friday that the class action civil rights suit, filed by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch on behalf of five plaintiffs, can proceed. The city had asked the court to dismiss the case. The judge said no.
The ruling marks a significant test for what has become a flagship initiative of the progressive reparations movement. Evanston was the first city in the country to pass a reparations plan, pledging $10 million over a decade to Black residents. Now it will have to defend that plan on the merits, in court, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The program provides direct cash payments of $25,000 to Black residents and descendants of Black residents who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969. Eligibility turns on race. Evanston's Reparations Committee announced in February that 44 residents had received payments. In total, 137 people have collected reparations totaling $3.47 million, with the city expecting 171 recipients and roughly $4 million allocated to direct descendants by year's end.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton framed the program in blunt constitutional terms:
"Evanston's reparations program provides $25,000 cash payments to Blacks only. The Constitution forbids race-based government programs like this. We welcome the court's decision to allow this historic lawsuit to move forward against this woke, racist program."
The city tried two arguments to get the case tossed before trial. First, Evanston contended the five plaintiffs never applied to the program. Second, it argued the application period had already closed in 2021. The city also claimed applicants could not have been eligible for non-racial reasons, such as ties to property. Judge Kness was not persuaded. The motion to dismiss was denied.
A city spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Evanston "is aware of the court's recent ruling" and "will continue to vehemently defend this case." The statement offered no further detail on the city's legal strategy going forward.
At its core, the lawsuit poses a straightforward question: Can a municipal government distribute taxpayer money to residents solely on the basis of race? Judicial Watch says the answer is no, pointing to the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law. The Supreme Court's 2023 decision striking down race-conscious college admissions has only sharpened the legal landscape for programs that use race as a qualifying criterion.
Evanston's program does not hide what it is. The eligibility criteria explicitly reference race. The payments go to Black residents and their descendants, period. That makes the constitutional question hard to sidestep, no matter how sympathetic the historical justification.
The pattern of courts scrutinizing race-based government action extends well beyond reparations. Recently, a federal judge who previously blocked North Carolina's voter ID law reversed course and upheld it as constitutional, reflecting a broader judicial willingness to apply equal-protection principles where progressive legal theories once held sway.
And Evanston is not the only city facing legal heat over reparations. In San Francisco, plaintiff Richie Greenberg is suing the city over its own Reparations Fund, claiming the measure is divisive because it solely favors Black residents. The legal theory is the same: government cannot pick winners and losers by race.
Even as courts raise constitutional red flags, the political appetite for reparations programs shows no sign of slowing in deep-blue jurisdictions. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to hold a public engagement forum called "Repair Chicago" designed to "gather lived experiences of harm of Black Chicagoans" as part of an effort to implement reparations in a city already facing a reported $150 million deficit.
That combination, fiscal strain and race-based spending, is exactly what critics say makes these programs reckless. Chicago can barely keep its books balanced, yet its mayor is laying groundwork for a program modeled on the very policy now headed to trial in neighboring Evanston.
The willingness of progressive leaders to press forward despite legal and fiscal headwinds fits a familiar pattern. Courts have increasingly pushed back on left-leaning legal positions in recent months. The Eighth Circuit recently handed the Trump administration a major win on ICE mandatory detention, and appellate courts have rejected other progressive claims on constitutional grounds.
What stands out in the Evanston case is the city's own defense. Evanston did not argue that race-based eligibility is constitutional. It argued that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they never applied and the application window closed. Judge Kness let the case proceed anyway. That procedural gambit failed, and now the city must confront the substance of the equal-protection claim.
The numbers tell a story of their own. Evanston has distributed $3.47 million to 137 recipients so far. The city expects to reach 171 recipients and approximately $4 million by the end of the year. The broader ten-year commitment is $10 million. Every dollar comes from local revenue, meaning every Evanston taxpayer, regardless of race, is funding payments restricted to one racial group.
Judicial Watch's lawsuit gives those taxpayers a day in court. The five plaintiffs represented by the group are challenging a system that, by design, excludes them from a public benefit on the basis of their race. That is precisely the kind of government action the Fourteenth Amendment was written to prevent.
The broader judicial trend suggests Evanston may face a difficult road ahead. Courts have shown increasing skepticism toward government programs that classify citizens by race, even when those programs are framed as remedial. The Ninth Circuit's recent rejection of a First Amendment case involving a women-only spa illustrated how courts are drawing sharper lines around constitutional claims, sometimes in ways that cut against progressive expectations, sometimes in ways that complicate them.
For Evanston, the immediate consequence of Friday's ruling is clear: the lawsuit moves forward. Discovery will follow. The city will have to open its books and defend the mechanics of a program built around racial classification. That process alone will test whether the policy can survive constitutional scrutiny, or whether it was always built on ground the Fourteenth Amendment does not allow.
Fox News Digital reported that Judicial Watch views the case as historic. Fitton called the program "woke" and "racist", strong language, but language rooted in a straightforward legal argument. If a city cannot distribute housing vouchers or business grants based on race, it is hard to see how it can distribute $25,000 cash payments based on race.
The ruling does not decide the merits. It simply says the case deserves a hearing. But for a movement that has relied on political momentum and sympathetic city councils, the courtroom is a different arena. In court, good intentions do not override constitutional text.
Evanston built the first municipal reparations program in America. Now it gets to be the first to defend one under the Equal Protection Clause. The outcome will shape whether other cities, Chicago, San Francisco, and beyond, can follow the same path, or whether the Constitution draws a line they cannot cross.
Equal protection means equal. Not equal except when a city council decides otherwise.
