Glennon v. Johnson

On January 30, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit against Mayor Brandon Johnson, the city of Chicago, Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Irvin, Bally’s Chicago Operating Company, and several members of the Illinois Gaming Board to challenge a contract that imposes explicit race-based and sex-based quotas on an upcoming casino project.

In 2022, the city of Chicago selected Bally’s Chicago Operating Company to develop the city’s first integrated casino. In a Host Community Agreement (HCA), the city’s government conditioned approval of the project on including various “minority preferences” that impose race-based and sex-based quotas on all elements of the project—including initial construction, employee hiring, board composition, and overall ownership.

Notably, the city’s mandatory quotas include a 25% minority requirement on casino ownership, a 40% minority requirement on board composition, and a “commitment to tak[ing] commercially reasonable efforts to maintain” a 60% minority workforce to staff the casino.

In order to meet these quotas, Bally’s registered an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of 10,000 shares that it will only sell to investors who meet the definition of “minority” imposed by the city of Chicago’s HCA. As a result, when Illinois resident and would-be investor Mark Glennon—a man who does not self-identify as any of the racial or ethnic groups included in Chicago’s definition of “minority”—submitted an application to invest on January 25, he was excluded from participating in Bally’s securities offering specifically due to his race and sex.

On January 30, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit on Mr. Glennon’s behalf to enforce his statutory and constitutional rights and to hold the city of Chicago accountable for forcing Bally’s to discriminate against potential investors on the basis of their race and sex.

“Chicago’s government has blatantly violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by requiring a private business to enforce discriminatory provisions under threat of severe financial loss,” said Reilly Stephens, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center. “Ultimately, the city has created a racial classification requirement that cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. We urge the court not only to strike it down, but also order Chicago’s government to never again enact such a discriminatory quid pro quo development agreement.”

In addition to filing suit to challenge Chicago’s violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Liberty Justice Center also filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order in the case. If the court grants this order, the city of Chicago will be prohibited from enforcing its racial and sexual quotas on the casino project while the lawsuit proceeds through the courts.

Glennon v. Johnson was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, on January 30, 2025.