Aldermen Blast City Hiring Policy Giving Preference to CPS Graduates

Chicago aldermen sent a letter to the human resources commissioner blasting a city hiring policy that gives preference to Chicago Public School graduates.

Aldermen Matt O’Shea (19th), Marty Quinn (13th) and Mary O’Connor (41st) expressed their concern to Chicago Department of Human Resources Commissioner Soo Choi that the city’s policy created an “unfair hurdle to interested candidates that based on all other merits being equal, are now being viewed as less preferable.”

The aldermen’s three wards respectively cover neighborhoods where a high number of Chicago police, firefighters and other city workers historically reside per the city’s residency requirement. The aldermen take issue with the practice -- announced by Mayor Rahm Emanuel two years ago -- that would give a leg up to CPS graduates applying for city jobs.

With the city preparing to take applications for the Chicago Fire Department for the first time in a decade, some lifelong city residents say the policy discriminates against graduates from Catholic and private schools, notes Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown.

Southwest Side alderman O’Shea and Quinn, and their Northwest Side colleague O’Connor, raise alarm over the potentially discriminatory policy in their letter to Choi:

“Our residents represent a rich tradition of City employees, public safety safety workers, and educators that would like their children to be afforded equal opportunity for employment … Many parents in our community make significant sacrifices to pay for parochial school education. In doing so, they continue to pay property taxes nearly half of which fund a school system that their children do not attend. To treat one group of tax-paying residents differently could be viewed as unfair.”

The aldermen state that while the CPS hiring preference is an internal policy not subject to City Council vote, all taxpayers should be considered equal when hiring for city jobs.

Ald. Howard Brookins (21st) tells Brown that those complaining about being penalized for exercising their religious beliefs by sending their children to Catholic schools “have been at an advantage for more than 100 years.” Brookins also called the Chicago Fire Department “the whitest department in the city of Chicago.”

Brookins believes the CPS hiring preference policy would bring “a different mix of folks” traditionally overlooked by the Chicago Fire Department and other city departments, Brown reported.

O’Shea, Quinn and O’Connor urged the city to modify its policy “to provide a more general preference that would benefit all applicants currently living within in Chicago,” by ensuring the same access to municipal employment.

Read the full letter and residents’ reactions on Ald. O’Shea’s Facebook page.