Plaintiffs allege they are ‘irreparably harmed’ by program’s limitation to Black ancestors and descendants, seek their own $25,000 payments
byAlex Harrison
A group of plaintiffs supported by a conservative group filed a class action lawsuit Thursday claiming the City of Evanston’s local reparations program is “purposefully and intentionally discriminating” against them – and potentially tens of thousands of others – by limiting eligibility to Black recipients in most cases, which they say constitutes a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
In a nine-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court, the six named plaintiffs –Margot Flinn, Carol Johnson, Stasys Neimanas, Barbara Regard, Henry Regard and Stephen Weiland – say they are each descended from people who lived in Evanston from 1919 to 1969 but aren’t Black, precluding them from qualifying as “direct descendants” in the city’s Restorative Housing Program. They allege this requirement racially discriminates against them, and that without it they would be “eligible for and in line to receive $25,000 under the program.”
“Plaintiffs are being irreparably harmed by Defendant’s [the city’s] deprivation of their rights to equal protection,” the complaint reads. “Plaintiffs remain able and ready to apply for payments under the program and intend to apply if the race-based eligibility requirement is declared unconstitutional and enjoined.”
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs ask that the requirement be struck down as unconstitutional, and the court award payments of $25,000 each to them and other members of the lawsuit’s class, defined as anyone who would qualify for the reparations program “but for the program’s race-based eligibility requirement.” They estimate this class to number “in the tens of thousands, if not more.”
Program approved in 2021
The Restorative Housing Program was approved by Evanston’s City Council in March 2021, and is designed to repair harm from racially discriminatory housing policies enforced by the city against Black residents from 1919 to 1969. As of May 1, the program has distributed $25,000 payments in various forms to over 90% of the qualified ancestor recipients, and has paid 64 direct descendants out of more than 450 in total.
City spokesperson Cynthia Vargas told the RoundTable via email that the city “does not comment on the specifics of pending litigation, but we will vehemently defend any lawsuit brought against our city’s reparations program.”
The plaintiffs are represented by senior attorney Michael Bekesha of Judicial Watch, a national conservative activist group, with assistance from A. Christine Svenson of Chalmers, Adams, Backer & Kaufman. Judicial Watch published a news release announcing the lawsuit Thursday afternoon, with a subtitle reading “Evanston, Illinois Directs $25,000 Payments Exclusively to Blacks.”
“The Evanston, Illinois’ ‘reparations’ program is nothing more than a ploy to redistribute tax dollars to individuals based on race,” Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president, says in the release. “This scheme unconstitutionally discriminates against anyone who does not identify as Black or African American. This class action, civil rights lawsuit will be a historic defense of our color-blind Constitution.”
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge John F. Kness, according to court records. No initial hearings have been scheduled at time of writing.
More details about Evanston’s local reparations program can be found in the RoundTable’s three-part 101 guide:
Evanston’s historic reparations program: A 101 guide
by Debbie-Marie Brown
Evanston’s historic reparations program: A 101 guide, part 2
by Debbie-Marie Brown
Evanston’s historic reparations program: A 101 guide, part 3
by Gina Castro
The full complaint can be read below:
Flinn et al v. COE ComplaintDownload
Alex HarrisonReporter
Alex Harrison reports on local government, public safety, developments, town-gown relations and more for the RoundTable. He graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in June...More by Alex Harrison
32 Comments
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Reparations Now! It’s for All African American in the United States of America! We were brought here in the Holds of ships!! Dedicating and urinating on each other. We get Reparations!! That’s it and that’s all!!
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Nope! Not with my tax dollars.
I didn’t own slaves, I didn’t import slaves, so why should I have to pay you with my hard earned money. And I will bet that 99.99% of Evanston residents never owned slaves, so why should they also?Reply
As I wrote in 2020, the Reparations program should have been a voluntary program. If it had been voluntary, there would not have been an opportunity to challenge the legal merits of reparations. The City of Evanston should shut reparations down to render this case moot and move the dollars to the general fund. To accommodate the reparations supporters, individuals who purchase marijuana at Evanston dispensaries can voluntarily pay into the Reparations fund. The voluntary reparations fund could be administered by the Evanston Community Foundation for example. The alternative is the City of Evanston spending hundreds of thousands dollars defending a hopeless position.
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When this “law” was passed by Evanston it was known that it would not stand up to legal challenge. It’s unconstitutional on its face. Instead, its supporters banked on no one challenging it lest they be scarlet lettered as racists.
Well times are a changing and the cancel culture of 2020 to 2023 is on the ropes. Common sense is now back in vogue.
It’s simple, finding a convoluted way to pay people who were never slaves with money from people that never owned slaves is silly.
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I’ve read through all the committee meeting minutes and looked through the finances, etc. I think the big challenge here is that the former City Lawyer, Mr. Cummings did the black residents and the City a disservice in setting up the fund the way he did.
Consider this example:
https://evanstonroundtable.com/2023/06/01/city-evaluates-routes-around-taxes-on-cash-payment-for-reparations/Mr. Cummings tells the committee and residents that this is non-taxable income. I called the IRS on Friday to ask about this, because I’m working on a story and they were less convinced. I think it’s an open question whether these constitute “restitution” payments but the IRS told me that the “restitution” exemptions in the tax law usually apply to statutory restitution, like the Japanese Internment folks, not just restitution in general.
Or consider that he gave an interview and said, “Renewing the fund remains another matter: Cummings is hesitant to directly tap the city’s general fund, out of a concern that might open the ordinance up to legal challenges.”
https://kentlaw.iit.edu/law/student-experience/student-alumni-stories/generalist-deis-forefrontYet tapping the general fund is exactly what he did in 2022 and 2023 when the city transferred 2 million dollars from the general fund to the reparations fund. Surely, they’ll depose him on this issue – what smart lawyer would say that publicly?
Finding a way to achieve reparations is a political objective of Evanston residents but like, anyone with a brain knew this was going to happen – so you have to dot your i’s and cross your t’s. Consider the implications if the city loses – they can’t claw back the direct payments – so do they owe all residents who lived here between 1919-1969 a $25,000 check? That would bankrupt the city overnight. But that is an actual possible outcome, here.
Speaking of reparations, that money – $3m+ of direct payments made to residents could’ve gone a long way towards the Fifth Ward School. Right now, D65 barely has the money to build a skeleton of a building in that ward and this money could’ve guaranteed things in the building like robotics labs, nice library, high quality finishes, etc. Also, that would’ve been *completely legal* and not resulted in a suit like this.
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My family has been murdered every generation since Thomas McKean 1776-1831 and Thomas McKean 1799-1831 all the way down to my grandpa and great grandma in 1990. You guys owe me a lot of money.
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Interesting. My question is, if the ‘reparations’ are based on the history of housing discrimination against Black people in Evanston during the stated time period, how could the ‘reparations’ program not also be limited to Black people? Was there racial discrimination in housing practiced against Evanston residents during that time who were neither Black nor white?
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The reparations program does not require any recipient (neither “ancestor” nor “descendant” recipients) to offer proof that the ancestor suffered actual housing discrimination. Also, the program is limited to black persons. A person of other racial minority groups who did suffer actual housing discrimination in Evanston is not eligible. These are the Constitutional violations of the program.
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Reparations are about housing discrimination. At least two of these plaintiffs are descended from a family that never had a problem building and owning their housing. I am descended from the same, and my family also never was subjected to housing discrimination. This lawsuit is bogus.
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I would encourage you to read the complaint. The reparation scheme doesn’t require that you are discriminated against for housing to be eligible for money. That’s the whole point of the lawsuit. The entire eligibility for payment is based on racial self-identity and documentation that you or your ancestors lived in Evanston-you don’t have to document discrimination.
Because you can be ruled ineligible based on federal protected categories the city set itself up for this lawsuit.
If it were actually meant to address housing discrimination enforced by the city, they should have required some sort of documentation that discrimination occurred as a result of City policy in order to get the benefit.
It is important also to remember that red lining and racial covenants had nothing to do with City of Evanston’s policies. Those were perpetrated by federal policies, private banks, private sellers, etc….
Those entities should be responsible for paying out reparations, not the city.
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This reparations scheme has always seemed unconstitutional, given that US Civil Rights laws prohibit discrimination based on any race. Now, the City will have to spend tax dollars to litigate this lawsuit, and the losers will be the Evanston tax payers who will foot the bill. Neither Biss nor Hagerty will be held accountable for this ill-conceived program initiated by Robin Rue Simmons, who profited from this scheme with her own $25k award.
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I gladly acknowledge that all of us have the right to petition the courts for redress of harms. And weirdly, I am also wildly offended that anyone would run to the courts and claim Evanston’s reparations program, implemented specifically to right the longstanding wrongs done ONLY to Black Evanstonians, and ONLY because they were Black, deliberately excluded them for not being Black. This is what is commonly referred to as a *male body-part* move and we can all thank the creeps at Judicial Watch for wasting our time, money, and energy while trying to make this a test case for our corrupt SCOTUS. I do not think for one minute that they don’t have this goal in mind. They are well funded, they are ideologues, and they are dangerous. Evanston should set up a legal defense fund right now and fight this tooth and nail with the best legal help available.
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Please explain the specific things the government of the City of Evanston has done to perpetuate the ‘longstanding wrongs’ you mention.
The Shorefront historical document (which has not been subject to academic standards of peer review) documents very little in the way of the city government engaging in discriminatory behavior.
It makes absolutely no sense for the city to pay out damages for things it was not responsible for.
The problem with the ordinance is that it is written so broadly that it fails to serve the actual purposes of reparations: to repair specific harms done by the city government.
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It would be of great benefit to our entire community if all of our members would take some time to understand the realities of systemic racism, its history and modern day efforts at keeping it in place. It seems these members of our community are so lacking that understanding that they are in fact helping to maintain the very system of racism the reparations are meant to try to help correct. It’s really unfortunate and I hope their effort fails. And I genuinely hope they find themselves a way to learn more about why the program exists in the first place.
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Mary Gavin, loved your letter to the ETHS graduates! Thanks.
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On the face of it, this lawsuit is both outrageous and racist to the point of absurdity, a distortion of history that furthers a white supremicist agenda. It should be struck off.
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This is not surprising. Reparations are designed to hold an entity or person accountable for specific harms they have imparted on another party.
In Evanston’s program there is no requirement that an applicant establish that the city government engaged in harmful action.
There were a few homes that were condemned during the 1940s by the city’s Land Clearance Commission. Arguably those people who were affected could be eligible for compensation by the city, but the current program is not limited to those property owners.
Given recent decisions at the Supreme Court related to racial preferences in college admission and redistricting, it is unlikely that the city’s policy holds up under judicial scrutiny.
I hope that the city uses money from the Reparations Fund to finance the court costs to defend this lawsuit rather than take general fund money since they are not likely going to be successful.
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What a load of … nonsense. Bigotry/racism has no end apparently. The entire point of the reparations program is to recognize the disadvantages historically imposed upon our black neighbors.
Get a life, racists
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Always playing the race card. How about following the laws and Constitution of the United States? …Not favoring one race over another.
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Other commenters have raised legal points involving this reparations program. It doesn’t mean they’re all racists.
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How shameful is this lawsuit! Just back from appreciating the memorials to the victims in Germany. Reparations is only a start. The U.S. has so much work to do.
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The Evanston reparations program is race-based, yes. As was slavery, as was racism in Evanston’s real estate market, as were admissions—actually, non-admissions—to Evanston Hospital, YMCA membership, etc. etc. The City is seeking to redress past wrongs that were racially inflicted. Being race-blind now does not allow you to ignore history—and, in fact, racial injustice as it still exists. Reject this lawsuit!
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You mentioned slavery, the real estate market, discrimination at the YMCA and Evanston Hospital as being a justification for the city’s reparations scheme.
However, the city government wasn’t involved or responsible for ANY of those things.
As I mentioned in a previous comment, reparations are meant to repair actions by a liable party.
If the YMCA or Evanston Hospital or real estate agents were responsible, they should be the ones paying.
Why should taxpayers bail out those private parties?
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Slavery in the Americas was not exactly “race-based.” For more information on this topic, the book “The Other Slavery” by Andres Resendez is illuminating. Coming in the future is “Fugitive Lands” by Hayley Negrin.
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This lawsuit is erroneous and appalling. These plaintiffs should be ashamed of themselves.
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Yet another Virtuous Christian Conservative SLAP action. I dont agree with reparations, but gross hypocracy jamming our court systems seems far worse.
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Gentle reminder that all of Evanston was once Native American land.
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Thanks for this
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Do you have a point? I’m not sure why that’s relevant here. Can you help me understand?
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It means that even the Blacks benefitted off some other racial group. So, where do we draw the line? It seems for now, Evanston arbitrarily has drawn the line with the Black racial group. How about the White union soldiers who fought in the Civil war, in honor of Memorial Day?
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I’m not the person you asked, but I can mention that IMHO, all the treaties ceding land to the Euro-Americans would be classified as invalid, because under modern contract law, they involved a party not fully informed of the terms, fraud, and duress. This is one reason for the widespread Land Acknowledgements. Also, for the Land Back movement.
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Righting (or not) the wrongs of local history.
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