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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday shared a post when he defended the city’s Reparations Task Force and took a sharp jab at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
“Judicial Watch is suing the City of Chicago over its reparations task force, saying that it’s discriminatory by race,” a reporter told Johnson at the press conference.
“When you said it wouldn’t just benefit Blacks, especially foundational Black Americans, doesn’t deviation from recently supported case law to institutions of higher learning, where Clarence Thomas laid out a legislative package, make the program unnecessarily vulnerable, status by race versus status by injured class?”
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“Yeah, I’m not aware of anything that Clarence Thomas has ever done that has benefited Black people,” Johnson replied.
“I just told you,” the reporter said.
“I mean, you read something, but there’s no evidence that anything that the Justice has ever done on behalf of the interests of Black people, or even marginalized people in general,” Johnson continued.
“It’s in his concurrent opinion, but anyway,” the reporter responded.
“But as far as any lawsuit against the City of Chicago as it relates to reparations, the whole point of reparations is to repair the harm that was done to Black folks,” Johnson continued. “That’s what it’s designed to do. As you might know, [the] Department of Justice, under the leadership of Donald Trump, is also suing the city of Chicago because of our efforts to right the wrongs of the past, particularly as it relates to descendants of slaves.”
“They can’t have it both ways. They can’t accuse the City of Chicago of focusing solely on Black folks while at the same time trying to make a claim that somehow we’re doing the opposite of that,” he added.
Thomas, who has served on the Supreme Court since 1991 and is the second Black justice to sit on the bench, sided with the 6-3 majority ruling shutting down affirmative action in 2023, saying the Court’s decision “sees the universities’ admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes.”
Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, sued Johnson last year for his effort to challenge the Trump administration’s immigration law enforcement activities.
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In regard to Judicial Watch’s lawsuit over Chicago’s Reparations Task Force, the organization did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. The mayor’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s inquiry about the particular lawsuit either.
In 2024, Johnson signed an Executive Order establishing a Reparations Task Force that addresses “historical harms committed against Black Chicagoans and their ancestors through the form of reparations.”
Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against Evanston, Illinois,’ reparations program, due to its use of race as an eligibility requirement for the program. The program issues $25,000 direct cash payments to Black residents and descendants of Black residents who lived in Evanston between the years 1919 and 1969. Evanston was the first city in the nation to pass a reparations plan, pledging $10 million over a decade to Black residents.
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The Supreme Court’s Public Information Office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment regarding Johnson’s remarks about Thomas.
Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
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