Evanston's Reparations Committee convenes Thursday, July 2, for its first session since the Trump administration moved to block the city's first-in-the-nation reparations program in federal court.

The meeting comes 18 days before the city's Monday, July 20 deadline to file a response to the U.S. Department of Justice's motion to intervene in Flinn v. City of Evanston, the lawsuit challenging the program's constitutionality. The DOJ filed its motion on Tuesday, June 16, alleging the program violates the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause and the Fair Housing Act.

The seven-member committee — three City Councilmembers from Wards 2, 5, and 8, plus four at-large members who are Evanston residents or business owners — has not published a formal agenda for Thursday's session. It is the panel's first scheduled meeting since the federal intervention was announced.

The program, approved by City Council in 2021, provides $25,000 payments to Black residents and their direct descendants who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969. The city has pledged $20 million total, funded by its 3% cannabis retailers tax and real estate transfer tax revenue, and had distributed over $7 million as of June 2026, according to WTTW. Ald. Krissie Harris (2nd Ward) told the committee earlier this year that 44 additional recipients were expected to receive payments by year's end, which would bring the total to 171.

Committee chairperson Robin Rue Simmons, the former 5th Ward alderman who created the program in 2019 and now leads the panel as an at-large member, said after the DOJ filing: "It is not at all unexpected that the federal government would attempt to intervene to protect the lies of white supremacy. What it means is we have to continue fighting."

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, head of the DOJ Civil Rights Division, said in a statement that the program amounts to "race discrimination, pure and simple" and called it illegal.

Mayor Daniel Biss called the lawsuit "politically motivated" in his final State of the City address on June 23 and said the city is "confident in its constitutionality." Biss announced at that event he will resign in October to run for Congress.

What to watch: Whether the committee signals any changes to the payment timeline or lottery process while the case proceeds, and how the city's legal strategy takes shape ahead of the July 20 filing. The next federal court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, August 6.