Chicago Pols Call for More FF Exams

Chicago aldermen are calling for more frequent firefighter entrance exams to diversify a fire department with a long and documented history is discrimination.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the issue was raised Tuesday by African-American aldermen who are clamoring for the fire department to make efforts to diversify in the same way the city's police department has during a two-year hiring surge.

The Chicago Fire Department has not had an entrance exam since 2014 and will not have another until 2021, an effort which Human Resources Commissioner Soo Choi said costs city taxpayers $3 million per exam.

“Don’t you think that’s an investment that is worthwhile? We can’t keep doing the same dance expecting different results. We’re not gonna be able to diversify the fire department until we recruit diversity to the fire department,” Ald. Leslie Hairston said.

“You think 2021 is an adequate amount of time to ensure that there’s diversity on the fire department? We have the history ..  of discrimination [in a department that] dragged its feet for so long, by the time the list of eligible fire people were up, they were too old to actually join the force.”

Choi said that with 18,207 firefighter candidates processed from the 2014 exam and 15,000 candidates still remaining on that list, it’s just not worth the money.

“I do believe that we should be testing more frequently," Choi said. "It really will boil down to whether we can find cost-effective ways to do that.”

The aldermen's concerns are not unfounded.

In 1973, a federal lawsuit accused the department of discrimination while only 4 percent of the city's 5,000 firefighters were black. The suit resulted in a four-year freeze on hiring and promotions and a federal consent decree mandating minority hiring. Between 1977 and 1979, the number of black firefighters increased from 150 to about 400.

Under current Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the city also resolved a long and bitter legal battle stemming from the discriminatory handling of a 1995 firefighter entrance exam. The city agreed to hire 111 bypassed African-American firefighters and borrow $78.4 million to compensate nearly 6,000 who never got that chance.