Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday stood behind interim Chicago Police Supt. Charlie Beck’s decision to abolish merit promotions.
“The merit selection process has become, I think, illegitimate. Survey after survey of police officers of all stripes have felt like people weren’t getting their jobs because of merit. They’re getting their jobs because of who they know,” the mayor said.
Black and Hispanic aldermen are concerned doing away with merit promotions will hurt efforts to diversify the department’s supervisory ranks by rewarding officers who don’t do well on written tests.
But Lightfoot maintained Thursday that aldermen have nothing to fear.
“We’re not gonna take a retreat back from diversity in the department. It’s critically important,” she said.
The mayor noted the upcoming sergeants exam has a written test that’s pass-fail. She hopes that will “eliminate any concerns about testing bias.” The other piece is an oral test being graded by “people outside the department,” she said.
“We have a lot of controls in place to make sure that we’re monitoring the test. And if we see that there are adverse consequences, then we’ll make the adjustments that are necessary,” she said.
“I’m comfortable with the path that we’re on right now. … This was a response to the deep concerns of a lot of people up and down the chain of command that the current structure for selecting supervisors is deeply flawed. And the culprit they have identified is merit selection.”
