An attorney suing the City of Evanston, Illinois, over its reparations program told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that if this case goes in their favor, other cities planning to implement reparations may have to reconsider.
"Those cities would take a hard look at what they were planning on doing and realize that if they're going to try and get reparations programs to be lawful, they are going to have to do something differently," said Michael Bekesha, a senior attorney at Judicial Watch.
The conservative watchdog group scored its first victory on Friday after a federal court denied a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against Evanston’s reparations program. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit against the reparations program over its use of race as an eligibility requirement, claiming that it violates the Constitution.
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The program provides $25,000 direct cash payments to Black residents and descendants of Black residents who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969. Evanston was the first U.S. city to pass a reparations plan, pledging $10 million over a decade to eligible Black residents.
There is no final ruling on the constitutionality of the program yet. Now, Judicial Watch is waiting for the next hearing to discuss "timing," Bekesha told Fox News Digital.
Bekesha said that the best outcome would be for the court to declare the policy unconstitutional, preventing Evanston from providing any more reparations payments based on race.
"The practical point is, even now, before we get to the merits, before the court rules that the reparations program in Evanston is unconstitutional, cities are going to take a real hard look and take a second before they decide to implement any reparations plan," Bekesha said.
U.S. District Judge John F. Kness allowed Judicial Watch’s class action civil rights lawsuit to proceed in a ruling last week.
"The judge moved forward because he found that the complaint — that the initial document creating the lawsuit was sufficient at this point to move forward," Bekesha said.
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The City of Evanston argued that the plaintiffs never applied to the program and the application period had already closed in 2021. The city added that applicants could not have been eligible for non-racial reasons such as ties to property.
"The court agreed with us and said that they didn't have to apply for the program because it would have been futile for them to do so because they were not Black," Bekesha added.
The city reacted to the judge's ruling in a statement to Fox News Digital.
"The city is aware of the court’s recent ruling. The city will continue to vehemently defend this case," a spokesperson for the city said.
Evanston led the effort to issue reparations payments to Black Americans before several states and local municipalities sought to implement reparations to some degree.
Evanston was the first to pay Black residents in reparations to cover housing expenses. So far, 137 people have received reparations payments totaling $3.47 million, and more are expected by year’s end, reaching 171 recipients with about $4 million allocated to direct descendants.
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Meanwhile, not far from Evanston, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to hold a public engagement forum called "Repair Chicago" to "gather lived experiences of harm of Black Chicagoans" as part of an effort to implement reparations.
On the state level, Illinois’ reparations commission released a report laying out what it called the state's history of harms against Black residents.
Other local municipalities have proposed compensation to rectify historical harms to Black Americans.
Judicial Watch’s lawsuit against Evanston is the first federal challenge to a local reparations program. Judicial Watch represents five plaintiffs who allege the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
"Five people that, but for the color of their skin, would be eligible for $25,000," Bekesha said.
Similar to Evanston, a San Francisco resident wants to take down the city’s reparations fund, spearheading a lawsuit that claims it is dividing the city.
