## Facts

- Northwestern University owned property within Evanston, Illinois, used for educational purposes and exempt from property taxes under Illinois law and Northwestern’s state charter.
- Evanston officials sought voluntary payments from Northwestern to help fund city services; Northwestern refused, creating a long-running political and financial dispute between the University and the City Council.
- In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Evanston adopted a local historic-preservation district that placed historic-review requirements on covered properties, including multiple Northwestern parcels.
- Northwestern alleged the City drew the district and pursued the ordinance in a way that imposed special burdens on the University’s property and development plans.
- Northwestern claimed the City’s actions were driven by hostility to Northwestern’s tax-exempt status and by an effort to pressure the University to make voluntary payments, rather than by neutral preservation goals.
- Northwestern sued the City under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, asserting an equal protection claim and related constitutional theories tied to alleged retaliation and coercion.
- The City moved for summary judgment.
- Northwestern came forward with evidence—described as direct evidence as to several council members—from which a factfinder could infer discriminatory or retaliatory intent behind the ordinance.

## Issues

1. Whether Northwestern produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that Evanston enacted or structured the historic-preservation district with discriminatory or retaliatory intent toward Northwestern, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
2. Whether Northwestern’s additional constitutional theories (including due process and unconstitutional-conditions theories, and retaliation theories to the extent pleaded) could survive summary judgment on this record.

## Decision

- The court granted the City’s motion for summary judgment in part and denied it in part.
- The court denied summary judgment on Northwestern’s equal protection claim, holding that the evidence of council-member motive and the surrounding dispute created a triable issue of fact as to whether the City targeted Northwestern for adverse treatment.
- The court granted summary judgment for the City on other constitutional theories to the extent they were pleaded as stand-alone due process or unconstitutional-conditions claims, narrowing the case to the claims supported by evidence of targeted, retaliatory treatment.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment must be denied when the nonmovant presents evidence that would allow a reasonable jury to find for it on a material element, including governmental intent where intent is part of the claim.
- A facially neutral ordinance can violate equal protection if enacted or applied with a discriminatory purpose aimed at a particular party, even if the government also asserts a legitimate objective.
- In selective-treatment or “class-of-one” equal protection claims, proof may be shown through evidence of intentional targeting and improper motive, including statements by decisionmakers and the sequence of events leading to the challenged action.
- Courts generally do not use substantive due process as a catchall when the alleged misconduct is more directly analyzed under specific constitutional protections (such as equal protection or retaliation doctrines); weakly supported, overlapping due process theories may be resolved at summary judgment.
- Legislative land-use measures receive deference as policy choices, but deference does not eliminate a triable issue where the record supports an inference that the measure was used as a tool to penalize a disfavored party.

## Conclusion

In Northwestern University v. City of Evanston, the district court held that Northwestern presented enough evidence of improper City Council motive—tied to the dispute over Northwestern’s tax-exempt status and refusal to make voluntary payments—to require a trial on equal protection, while granting summary judgment against broader due process and unconstitutional-conditions theories that were not independently supported or were better addressed through the more specific constitutional claims.


Northwestern University v. City of Evanston, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17104 (2002)