From Fox News: Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, told Fox News Digital on Tuesday it filed a lawsuit against Evanston, Illinois, to stop the city from paying Black residents reparations.
Evanston will issue $25,000 to 44 residents in reparations payments, the City’s Reparations Committee announced on Thursday.
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit against the reparations program over its use of race as an eligibility requirement. The program provides $25,000 direct cash payments to Black residents and descendants of Black residents who lived in Evanston between the years 1919 and 1969. Evanston was the first U.S. city to pass a reparations plan, pledging $10 million over a decade to Black residents.
Judicial Watch represents five plaintiffs who allege the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“There’s a right way and a wrong way to do them. So reparations are to repair. And so we have provided in this country reparations in the past when somebody has been wronged by the government, and we try to make that person whole,” said Michael Bekesha, a senior attorney at Judicial Watch. “The reparations programs that you’re seeing around the country that are being talked about aren’t that. They are just entirely giving money, usually to Black residents solely on the basis of race. And I mean, that’s just problematic.”
Bekesha said they represent “five people that, but for the color of their skin, would be eligible for $25,000,”
“The Equal Protection Clause is that the government can’t discriminate against citizens based on their race or gender or national origin. The government shouldn’t pick winners and losers based on characteristics that are completely separate from whether or not somebody has been harmed or injured,” he said.
“The best outcome would be for the court to declare the policy unconstitutional, prevent the city of Evanston from providing any more reparations payments based on race, and make whole any non-Black resident or descendant of a resident who, you know, would be otherwise eligible for the payment,” he added.
Watchdog group sues Illinois city’s reparations program over giving money based on race https://t.co/TTc4bGYzrl #FoxNews
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) February 11, 2026
CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATION: Judicial Watch sues Evanston, Illinois over its $10 million reparations program, representing five plaintiffs denied $25,000 payments due to race. pic.twitter.com/XoWmZ3Bbr5
— Fox News Flash (@FoxNews_Flash) February 11, 2026
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