Judicial Watch’s lawsuit uses the same argument that the Supreme Court accepted in the bid to end affirmative action programs.

Evanston, a Chicago suburb, has been credited with launching the country’s first government-funded reparations program for Black Americans. It has paid out nearly $5 million to 193 of the town’s Black residents over the past two years. But now a conservative advocacy group has filed a class-action lawsuit to kill the program, arguing that it discriminates against the suburb’s non-Black residents.
The lawsuit is part of a wave of cases spurred on the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions. Conservative groups have since targeted diversity fellowships and waged a legal battle to force the federal Minority Business Development Agency to open up to White business owners.

“This program redistributes tax dollars based on race,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, the group that filed the lawsuit against Evanston. “That’s just a brazen violation of the law.”
Evanston “will vehemently defend” its reparations program, said Cynthia Vargas, the city’s communications and engagement manager. She declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court at the end of May.
Reparations advocates worry that the lawsuit could derail a national effort to compensate Black Americans for the lingering effects of hundreds of years of discrimination.
“This lawsuit is part of a larger movement to challenge race-conscious programs in all aspects of society,” said Jason Schwartz, a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who is representing the Fearless Fund, a venture capital firm that provides grants to Black female entrepreneurs, against a similar lawsuit. On Monday, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit panel ruled that the Atlanta-based venture capital firm should be temporarily blocked from issuing grants reserved for businesses owned by Black women, saying that doing so would probably discriminate against business owners of other races.
In recent years, more than a dozen states and cities, including New York and Boston, have begun studying the possibility of offering reparations to their Black residents. California lawmakers are considering legislation to establish a state agency to oversee potential reparations programs.
Now eyes are back on Evanston, which helped launch the national movement, said Kamilah Moore, chair of California’s Reparations Task Force.
“What happens in this case will definitely have an effect on what kind of programs we see rolling out” in other communities, Moore said. Judicial Watch’s lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of six non-Black residents of the city, argues that the program’s “race-based eligibility requirement” violates the 14th Amendment.
The amendment was written to guarantee the rights of the millions of formerly enslaved Black Americans after the Civil War. In recent years, conservative lawyers and judges have used it to strike down programs that they say unfairly advantage Black Americans and other minorities.
That argument got a boost last June, when the Supreme Court’s conservative majority struck down affirmative action in college admissions.
The court’s decision closed the door on race-based reparations programs, said Horace Cooper, a former constitutional law professor and the chairman of Project 21, which champions conservative approaches to the issues facing Black Americans. Judicial Watch’s lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of six non-Black residents of the city, argues that the program’s “race-based eligibility requirement” violates the 14th Amendment.
The amendment was written to guarantee the rights of the millions of formerly enslaved Black Americans after the Civil War. In recent years, conservative lawyers and judges have used it to strike down programs that they say unfairly advantage Black Americans and other minorities.
That argument got a boost last June, when the Supreme Court’s conservative majority struck down affirmative action in college admissions.
The court’s decision closed the door on race-based reparations programs, said Horace Cooper, a former constitutional law professor and the chairman of Project 21, which champions conservative approaches to the issues facing Black Americans.