Illinois’ premiere city in doling out reparations isn’t Chicago, and it just green-lit more than $1 million worth of funds to be distributed to a few dozen residents despite legal challenges.
While many state and local leftists have talked about race-based redistribution of wealth, even forming taxpayer-funded committees to calculate exorbitant sums, in 2019, the Chicago suburb of Evanston walked the walk. Now, seven years later, another 44 residents are expected to get handouts of $25,000, said to be earmarked for housing expenses.
Last week, Evanston’s Reparations Committee announced the additional payouts as Cynthia Varga, the city’s communications and community engagement manager, confirmed the totals to the Chicago Tribune.
“Over the next few weeks,” added Assistant to the City Manager Tasheik Kerr, “residents assigned numbers 127 through 171 will be contacted to let them know their payment is on the way.”
As had been reported, following a voter-approved plan in 2019, the Evanston City Council approved the program that targets residents or descendants of residents deemed to have experienced housing discrimination between 1919 and 1969, rather than those who may have been impacted by slavery.
The funds necessary to provide the $25,000 payments were said to have been collected through the real estate transfer tax, which had amassed $276,588 as of Jan. 31. Additionally, the program receives revenue from a 3% tax on cannabis retailers, an avenue of expansion the council has under consideration via a potential tax on certain TCH products.
Speaking with The Daily Northwestern, city attorney Alexandra Ruggie addressed the authority to tax Delta-8 products while recognizing they would not amount to much in the grand scheme: “Delta-8 products tend to be rather inexpensive, so the tax on them — it likely won’t be a huge revenue stream, but it is revenue.”
“It’s really important for people to understand we pay as we have the money, and it’s not that we’re withholding from paying everyone,” 2nd Ward Councilmember Krissie Harris told the outlet. “It’s just we have to accumulate the funds to make sure we can pay.”
Meanwhile, as other jurisdictions aim for bigger payments, like San Francisco, where officials hope to be able to handout $5 million to residents alleged to have suffered injustices as a result of slavery they never personally experienced, Evanston faces a class action lawsuit over the $25,000 sums.
Ahead of a hearing in September 2025, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, whose organization filed suit over the use of race as an eligibility requirement for the program, said, “To date, Evanston has awarded over $6,350,000 to 254 individuals based on their race. The city must be stopped before it spends even more money on this clearly discriminatory and unconstitutional reparations program.”
Responding to the city’s motion to dismiss the suit, alleging a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Judicial Watch said, “[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 societal 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.”
“To date, Evanston has awarded over $6,350,000 to 254 individuals based on their race. The city must be stopped before it spends even more money on this clearly discriminatory and unconstitutional reparations program,” @TomFitton (3/3). https://t.co/9q48hUOswG
— Judicial Watch ⚖️ (@JudicialWatch) September 24, 2025
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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