By Fran Spielman
The Chicago Sun-Times
Copyright 2007 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
CHICAGO — Chicago is free to hire new firefighters from the list generated by the city’s first firefighters entrance exam in more than a decade, thanks to the latest chapter in a marathon legal battle.
Citing the potential for “irreparable injury” to Chicago taxpayers, U.S. District Judge Joan Gotschall agreed to stay her own injunction that would have required the city to hire 132 African-American firefighters denied jobs because of the city’s discriminatory handling of a 1995 firefighters exam before drawing names from the 2006 list.
“While the court does not minimize the harm to individuals who may never be able to work as firefighters because of the delay, it finds the irreparable injury to the city and to the public more compelling,” Gotschall wrote in a decision handed down late Thursday.
Gotschall noted that she has already ordered the city to pay financial damages to bypassed black candidates. Plaintiffs’ attorneys have pegged the total at $27.7 million, as of the end of April.
Matt Piers, an attorney representing bypassed black candidates, called the stay “inappropriate” and “disappointing.”
“We’re confident we’re going to end up prevailing on appeal. Unfortunately, our clients will have to wait another year or two until they get hired by the Chicago Fire Department,” Piers said.
The Daley administration is appealing Gotschall’s 2005 discrimination ruling on grounds that the lawsuit was filed too late.
Who’s ‘well-qualified’?
Law Department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle said the stay means the Fire Department “can go ahead and hire from the 2006 list.” When results of the ’95 exam were disappointing for minorities, the city established a cutoff score of 89 and hired randomly from the top 1,800 “well qualified” candidates.
Two years ago, Gotschall ruled that the method had the effect of perpetuating the predominantly white status quo, since 78 percent of those “well-qualified” candidates were white. More than 83 percent of the 20,400 people who took the 2006 test, a pass-fail exam, passed, and 44 percent of them were minorities.
A union leader has accused the city of endangering firefighters and the public in the name of diversity. Mayor Daley angrily denied the charge.