EVANSTON, Ill. — A federal legal challenge to Evanston’s reparations program is putting the city’s effort to address decades of government-backed housing discrimination at the center of a national fight over racial equity and the role of government. The Justice Department announced in June that it would intervene in a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group. The suit argues that Evanston’s program unlawfully discriminates against residents who are not Black because grants are reserved for Black applicants who can show that they or an ancestor lived in the city between 1919 and 1969. Evanston approved the program in 2021, becoming the first U.S. city to provide reparations payments for historical discrimination against Black residents. The city committed $20 million from cannabis and real estate transfer tax revenue and established grants of $25,000 per person. More than 300 residents have received payments. The grants have been used for home repairs, renovations and projects intended to help families remain in Evanston, where the Black population has fallen to less than 15% of the city’s more than 75,000 residents. Allie Zemtseff used her grant to remodel her kitchen. She grew up watching her Black mother be rejected by landlords while looking for housing in predominantly white neighborhoods during the 1960s. “Of course it’s only for Black people,” Zemtseff said. “We were the ones affected by the discrimination.” The city’s program grew out of research by Robin Rue Simmons, who represented Evanston’s historically Black 5th Ward on the City Council. In 2019, Rue Simmons began examining why Black residents were leaving the city and connected current affordability and wealth gaps to policies that confined Black residents to one neighborhood. A 1921 zoning law helped steer Black residents toward the 5th Ward. For decades, banks also denied mortgages in the neighborhood, limiting the ability of Black families to purchase homes and build wealth. A city-commissioned report documented those policies and other practices that harmed Evanston’s Black community. The city later issued an apology and created a program requiring applicants to establish both their Black identity and a family connection to Evanston during the period when segregation was most entrenched. Mayor Daniel Biss has rejected the lawsuit’s characterization of the program as a race-based giveaway. He said the grants are intended to address measurable consequences of policies that depressed property values and restricted access to homeownership for Black residents. “Deliberate decisions were made that sent property values of property owned by white folks up, and property values owned by Black folks down,” Biss said. “This is a program that is trying to undo the consequences of racial discrimination.” The Justice Department has taken the opposite position. Harmeet Dhillon, the department’s civil rights chief, said in June that distributing money based on race was unconstitutional discrimination and not an appropriate remedy. She later said the administration intended to stop Evanston’s payments, warning that allowing the program to continue could encourage similar efforts elsewhere. The lawsuit’s attorney, Michael Bekesha, said the program does not require applicants to prove that they or a family member personally experienced discrimination. The six plaintiffs in the case are not Black, he said, and would otherwise have been eligible based on their Evanston ties. Constitutional law generally permits race-conscious government programs only when they are narrowly connected to documented discrimination, according to legal experts. Justin Hansford, a Howard University law professor who works with attorneys supporting local reparations efforts, said Evanston’s detailed historical record could be important as the case moves through federal court. Alvin Tillery, a Northwestern University professor and director of the university’s Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy, described the dispute as a major civil rights test. He said the case could affect whether cities can design programs aimed at repairing specific, documented harms caused by government policy. For residents who have received grants, the program’s meaning extends beyond the checks themselves. Kimberly Holmes-Ross used her payment to replace plumbing and wiring and add a porch to her family’s home in the 5th Ward. Her parents bought the house in the early 1960s through a high-interest contract after banks refused to provide them a conventional mortgage. Her son is using his grant to convert the basement of Holmes-Ross’ current home into an apartment, allowing him to stay in Evanston. Holmes-Ross said her mother encouraged the family to apply because the city’s acknowledgment mattered as much as the money. “She said it’s not even about the money,” Holmes-Ross recalled. “It’s about the acknowledgment. The city is acknowledging the harm.” Evanston officials have said they intend to continue paying residents who applied and qualified while the lawsuit proceeds. Rue Simmons, who now leads the reparations nonprofit FirstRepair, is urging other communities to document their histories carefully and pursue local repair programs despite the possibility of legal opposition.