A Quota for Chicago

After more than five years of lawsuits aimed at ending discriminatory hiring practices, a federal judge last week imposed a stunningly sweeping quota system on Chicago's police department. Within the next 90 days, ruled U.S. District Court Judge Prentice H. Marshall, the department must hire 400 new officers--50% of them black and Hispanic males, 16.5% women and 33.5% white males. The judge also imposed a similar quota on future hiring. Until the city complies, added Marshall, it cannot touch U.S. revenue-sharing funds that were withheld from Chicago since December 1974 under a separate but related suit and now total $95 million.

Marshall's decision aroused intense controversy in Chicago and extreme anxiety among police chiefs elsewhere, few of whom can match Chicago's record: 18% minority representation in its 13,500-man force. The Chicago Tribune, while editorially criticizing the city for its failure to produce a workable plan, called Marshall's solution "absurdly arbitrary." Grumbled Mayor Richard Daley: "A quota system is alien to America. We will fight this as long as we're around. What about the Polish, the Italians, the Jews--and don't forget the American Indians. They were here first." What probably irritated the aging (73) but still feisty Daley even more is that the decision to withhold revenue sharing, which is currently being appealed, has forced him to go begging for money in spite of Chicago's financial good health. Daley has had to borrow $55 million from local banks to tide the city over a liquidity crisis.

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