Donald Trump is aiming to block an Illinois city from providing reparations for Black residents. Although the city of Evanston approved its reparation program in 2021, aiming to compensate Black residents for historical injustice, the Trump administration now says the city’s plan is discriminatory.

What did the DOJ say about Evanston’s reparation program?

In June, the Justice Department revealed its plan to file a lawsuit against Evanston, joining a conservative legal group known as Judicial Watch. The DOJ released a statement at that time, saying the city’s reparation program is discriminatory because it’s only available for Black residents.

“Simply handing out money based on race … is not the answer,” Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s civil rights chief, said in a statement, per NPR. “It is race discrimination, pure and simple.”

Dhillon continued to speak up against Evanston when she later appeared on a radio show. The DOJ official said the city’s program would lead to a “slippery slope.”

“We’re going to put a stop to it,” she said.

How did Evanston launch its reparation program?

Evanston started discussing reparation plans in 2019 after former councilmember Rue Simmons presented research which revealed that the historic Black neighborhood, the 5th Ward, was losing its population. Simmons said Black residents are now facing challenges with affordability due to decades of injustice, going back to the city’s 1921 zoning law which forced families to move to a neighborhood where local banks denied them mortgages and blocked them from building wealth.

“And so I knew that we had to have targeted redress,” Rue Simmons said, per NPR. “As targeted as the harmful zoning that reinforced redlining.”

After collecting funds from cannabis taxes and real estate transfers, Evanston allocated $20 million for reparations, giving $25,000 per person. Those who received reparations had to prove that their families lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969, a time when many Black residents were especially impacted by housing segregation.

“It’s meant to build wealth, ultimately,” Rue Simmons said. “And that allows us to stay here.”