A federal judge has allowed a lawsuit challenging Evanston, Illinois’ reparations program to move forward. The move will keep the fight alive over whether the city can limit payments to Black residents and descendants of Black residents.

According to Legal Newsline, U.S. District Judge John F. Kness denied the city’s motion to dismiss the case. The lawsuit was brought by a group of white former Evanston residents and their descendants.

The suit was filed in 2024 by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group representing five plaintiffs who argue the program violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by using race as an eligibility requirement.

“The Evanston, Illinois’ ‘reparations’ program is nothing more than a ploy to redistribute tax dollars to individuals based on race,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement shared when the lawsuit was filed. “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 colorblind Constitution.”

The Evanston program alots $25,000 payments to eligible Black residents and descendants tied to the city’s history of housing discrimination.

In 2021, Evanston became the first U.S. city to approve a reparations plan, pledging $10 million over 10 years to address “historical harm” to residents who experienced severe “discriminatory housing policies and practices.”

Redlining — where Banks would literally draw a “red line” on maps around Black neighborhoods — was a systemic practice that allowed financial institutions and government agencies to deny mortgages, loans, and insurance to Black people solely based on race and in Black neighborhoods.

This was commonly done throughout the U.S. until 1968, when it was outlawed. The damage persists through modern times.

Evanston, the picturesque lakeside suburb North of Chicago, carries an even more aggressive history of housing discrimination toward its Black people.

Black residents were forced to live in a triangle-shaped area known as the 5th Ward. In the 1940s, the city demolished some of the homes belonging to Black residents who lived outside of the 5th Ward, pushing them to live in the segregated neighborhood.

“The historic redlining impacts our community today,” said then alderman Rue Simmons to ABC in 2021. “That map still is the map of our concentrated Black community, our disinvestment, our inferior infrastructure.”

The area, flanked by a sewage canal, was segregated from White residents and far removed from public transportation, according to ABC News. At one point, the homes had no electricity or water.

“The only option to buy in Evanston was basically in the 5th Ward,” Robinson said. “Banks in Evanston would not loan to Black families for housing [and] the real estate agencies would not show you anything other than the 5th Ward.”

​Currently, the city has already distributed millions through its reparations program, and officials say they will continue defending it in court.

​The plaintiffs argued that they were unfairly excluded because the city’s rules require racial eligibility, while the city said the lawsuit should be dismissed because the plaintiffs never applied and the application window closed in 2021. 

The judge’s ruling did not decide whether the program is legal; it only means the case can continue.