(Chicago Sun Times) — Mayor Daley’s appointment of third-generation firefighter Robert Hoff to replace ousted Fire Commissioner John Brooks sailed through a City Council committee on Monday — with a promise from Hoff to embrace older black applicants bypassed by the city’s discriminatory handling of a 1995 firefighters exam.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that African-American applicants did not wait too long before filing a lawsuit that accused the city of perpetuating the predominantly-white status quo by establishing a cut-off score of 89 and hiring randomly from the top 1,800 “well-qualified” applicants.