Six people filed a federal class action against the Chicago suburb of Evanston on Wednesday, hoping to scrap the racial component of a local program meant to address historic racial injustice.

The Restorative Housing Program is an Evanston initiative to compensate Black residents for housing discrimination they or their ancestors may have faced between 1919 and 1969. It assists eligible applicants with buying or improving their own homes, and in some cases qualifies households for direct payments of up to $25,000.

The six plaintiffs in the lawsuit said they would qualify for the program’s $25,000 payment as well, were eligibility not limited to 20th century Black Evanston residents and their descendants. None of the plaintiffs are Black and none currently live in Evanston, but their parents did.

“But for the program’s race-based eligibility requirement, plaintiffs would be in line to receive $25,000 direct cash payments as ‘direct descendants,'” the plaintiffs argued.

The plaintiffs are being represented in the suit by Michael Bekesha, a senior attorney with the conservative legal nonprofit Judicial Watch. Bekesha claimed in a phone interview that the Restorative Housing Program violated equal protection law by excluding non-Black people.

“The program is unconstitutional as it is written and as it’s being applied,” Bekesha said.

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