The Chicago Police Department has been holding frequent entrance exams — in May and June of this year with a third coming up in December — as it wraps up a two-year hiring surge to add 970 additional officers over and above attrition.
But the Chicago Fire Department is a different story. There was a firefighters entrance exam in 2014. There won’t be another one until 2021. On Tuesday, African-American aldermen who have clamored for diversity in a fire department with a long and documented history of discrimination demanded more frequent testing.
“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 (5th) told Human Resources Commissioner Soo Choi.
“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.”