Trump Administration Steps In To Halt $25K Reparation Handouts In This Blue State: ‘It Is Race Discrimination’

It’s a controversial policy proposal, but support for reparation payments to Black Americans has gained significant support in recent years in some far-left enclaves across the nation.

But as one Chicago suburb seeks to implement the first such program of its kind in US history, the Trump administration is challenging the move on constitutional grounds.

The Hill provided details about the program and the Justice Department’s response:

The Restorative Housing Program, implemented in 2021, offers those families grants of up to $25,000 that can be used to make a down payment on a home, repair property or pay interest and late penalties on property within the city.

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Those who can prove they were harmed by the city’s policies and practices after 1969, when the city banned housing discrimination, may also qualify.

The Justice Department has alleged that the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and the Fair Housing Act because it is “not narrowly tailored to remediating specific, identified instances of past discrimination” and public money is distributed solely based on race.

“There are sound ways for a city to remedy past discrimination or direct to its most vulnerable citizens and neighborhoods,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. “Simply handing out money based on race, however, is not the answer. It is race discrimination, pure and simple. And it is illegal.”

A group of individuals whose ancestors lived in Evanston during the same 20th-century period but do not identify as Black or African American sued the city in 2024, claiming they were unlawfully excluded from receiving benefits.

The latest development has sparked some social media interest:

Does it take an intense legal battle to defeat a blatantly racist, unconstitutional program?

— The Intersect (@mburm201) June 16, 2026

Over 34,000 White men from the state of Illinois died to end slavery. No person was a slave or owned a slave in Illinois. Where are the reparations for their descendants? Where is the collective thank you for your sacrifice from African-Americans? What about all those maimed?

— Jack Ryder (@fearpoulywerrin) June 17, 2026

When was slavery finally outlawed in Evanston?

— Peter.Fallow.1987 (@Peter1987Fallow) June 16, 2026

Here’s more from the Department of Justice website:

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that government actions classifying citizens by race are presumptively unconstitutional,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros for the Northern District of Illinois. “The Constitution demands that the government treat citizens as individuals, not as members of a racial class. Distributing public funds based on an individual’s ancestry or race divides the citizenry and establishes the very hierarchy the Equal Protection Clause was designed to dismantle.”

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In 2019, the city adopted the “Local Reparations Restorative Housing Program.” Under this program, black persons who lived in the City of Evanston as an adult at any time between 1919 and 1969, as well as their children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren, can receive $25,000 in the form of cash payments, which the recipient can use for any purpose, or financial assistance for purchasing, repairing, or maintaining a primary residence in the city. The city has not identified any specific acts of discrimination that violated the constitution or a statute that these payments are intended to remedy. Nor does the city require any evidence that recipients or their ancestors experienced discrimination when they lived in the city. Race alone determines whether a current or former resident or their descendant receives $25,000 in cash or financial assistance for housing. To date, the city has paid over $5 million and it plans to distribute millions more as funds become available.

In 2024, descendants of persons who had lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969, but who were not black, filed a lawsuit, Flinn, et al. v. City of Evanston, No. 24-cv-4269 (N.D. Ill.), challenging their exclusion from the city’s program as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court denied the city’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit in March 2026. That same month, the United States opened an investigation of the program under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fair Housing Act. The city refused to cooperate in the United States’ investigation. The United States now seeks to intervene in the lawsuit.

Here’s some additional coverage: