Federal government asks judge to stop Black reparations program, funded by Illinois marijuana taxes

The federal government on Tuesday asked a judge to put a stop to the nation's first reparations program for Black people, arguing it's unconstitutional. The DOJ is intervening in a 2024 lawsuit filed against the City of Evanston, Illinois, over the program. 

The city started the program in 2021, with the goal of giving money to Black residents or their direct descendants who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 and claim to have suffered housing discrimination because of city ordinances, policies or practices. 

The $20 million program, which is funded by a local tax on legal marijuana sales, also applies to residents of any race who claim to have experienced discrimination due to city policies after 1969. The city has already dolled out $7 million to hundreds of people in $25,000 payments, the Associated Press reported. 

The program allots different benefits based on the race of the recipient, which the Department of Justice argues is "racially discriminatory" and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. 

"There are sound ways for a city to remedy past discrimination or direct resources to its most vulnerable citizens and neighborhoods. Simply handing out money based on race, however, is not the answer. It is race discrimination, pure and simple. And it is illegal," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. 

Michael Bekesha filed a lawsuit in 2024 against the City of Evanston over the program on behalf of six plaintiffs who said they'd have been eligible for the program if they were black. He told the Associated Press that the applicants weren't required to demonstrate they were specifically harmed by the city's policies and practices, which means that race is the only criteria upon which funds are dispersed.