Feds seek to join case to halt Evanston black ‘reparations’ payments

The Justice Department is jumping into court against the city of Evanston, lending the heft of the federal government to a lawsuit challenging the city’s programs to pay out millions of dollars to Black current and former Evanston residents and their descendants through a race-based “reparations” program.

On June 16, the Justice Department filed a motion in Chicago federal court, asking for permission to intervene in the case. The filing was submitted by Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, together with Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and others from that division.

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that government actions classifying citizens by race are presumptively unconstitutional,” said Boutros in a statement announcing the court action.

“The Constitution demands that the government treat citizens as individuals, not as members of a racial class. Distributing public funds based on an...