DOJ Moves to Challenge Chicago-Area Housing Reparations Program

The Justice Department moved to intervene in a lawsuit challenging a Chicago suburb’s housing reparations program, saying it discriminates against people who aren’t Black.

The Evanston, Ill., Local Reparations Restorative Housing Program isn’t narrowly aimed at people who can prove their ancestors faced discrimination, according to DOJ filings Tuesday.

“Evanston has chosen to distribute substantial benefits to persons solely because of their race or the race of their ancestors. It has not taken any steps to tailor those benefits to the harms those persons may have suffered,” DOJ said in its proposed intervening complaint.

The motion to intervene is in line with the Trump administration’s hard push against diversity-related initiatives that it claims are illegal.

In a news release, Northern District of Illinois US Attorney Andrew Boutros said “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.”

The Evanston program allows for $25,000 payments to Black residents who were at least 18 years old between 1919 and 1969, as well as “direct descendants” of Black people who lived in Evanston in that time frame. It’s also open to residents who can show they experienced housing discrimination after 1969 because of an Evanston policy.

Six people sued the city in 2024, saying but for their race they’d be eligible for payments as direct descendants.

Judge John Kness of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied Evanston’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit in March.

DOJ seeks to file a complaint in intervention, which names Evanston as a defendant and alleges the city has violated the Fair Housing Act and the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

Plaintiffs are represented by Judicial Watch Inc. and Svenson Legal LLC. Evanston is represented by its Department of Law and Jenner & Block.

The case is Flinn v. City of Evanston, N.D. Ill., No. 1:24-cv-04269, DOJ motion to intervene filed 6/16/26.