Judicial Watch: Federal Court Hearing Set in Civil Rights Class Action Lawsuit Against Reparations Program

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, May 7, 2025, in the class action civil rights lawsuit filed against Evanston, Illinois, on behalf of six individuals over the city’s reparations program (Flinn et al. v Evanston (No. 1:24-cv-04269)).

The court ordered the in-person hearing for oral argument on Evanston’s pending motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

 Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit over the city’s use of race as an eligibility requirement for a reparations program, which makes $25,000 direct cash payments to black residents and descendants of black residents who lived in Evanston between the years 1919 and 1969. 

Judicial Watch alleges that the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In response to the city’s motion to dismiss, Judicial Watch argues that the case should continue to go forward because:

[T]he program’s use of a race-based eligibility requirement is presumptively unconstitutional, and remedying societal discrimination is not a compelling government interest. Nor has remedying discrimination from as many as 105 years ago or remedying intergenerational discrimination ever been recognized as a compelling government interest. Among the program’s other fatal flaws is that it uses race as a proxy for discrimination without requiring proof of discrimination.

“It should go without saying that Evanston’s reparations program is clearly discriminatory and unconstitutional. Judicial Watch’s class action lawsuit should proceed,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch is being assisted in the lawsuit by Christine Svenson of Chalmers, Adams, Backer & Kaufman, LLC.

Judicial Watch lawsuits challenging unconstitutional discrimination are extensive.

 On January 29, 2024, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on behalf of San Francisco taxpayers over a city program that discriminates in favor of biological black and Latino men who identify as women in the distribution of tax money. The lawsuit was filed after Judicial Watch earlier forced the release of records from the City of San Francisco showing the city prioritized tax money for black and Latino transgenders (biological men) in the Guaranteed Income for Trans People program. The City of San Francisco, in a 7-3 vote by the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco, authorized a settlement agreement. The agreement committed the city to pay $3,250 in attorney’s fees and costs and not to create a new guaranteed income program with the same eligibility criteria.

 In August 2022, Judicial Watch sued Minneapolis Public Schools on behalf of a Minneapolis taxpayer over a teachers’ contract that provided discriminatory job protections to certain racial minorities to proceed. In January 2025, the Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed Judicial Watch’s lawsuit for a lack of standing without deciding whether the racially discriminatory teachers’ contract was unconstitutional. 

The City of Asheville, NC, in January 2022, settled a Judicial Watch federal civil rights lawsuit after agreeing to remove all racially discriminatory provisions in a city-funded scholarship program. Additionally, the city also agreed to remove racially discriminatory eligibility provisions in a related program that provides grants to educators. 

In May 2022, Judicial Watch won a court battle against California’s gender quota law for corporate boards. The verdict came after a 28-day trial. The verdict followed a similar ruling in Judicial Watch’s favor the previous month, finding California’s race, ethnicity, and LGBT quotas on corporate boards unconstitutional.

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