America First Legal filed a civil rights complaint on Thursday against the city of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department, alleging that both the city and the department use race-based criteria in recruitment, hiring, promotion, and enforcement decisions.
The complaint, obtained by Fox News Digital, claims Chicago officials have adopted policies that violate federal civil rights law.
AFL counsel Alice Kass wrote in the filing, “Chicago is disguising its discriminatory actions under the pretext of ‘racial equity,’ openly defying federal civil rights laws and Executive Orders issued by President Donald J. Trump.
Bureaucrats have embedded ‘equity’ principles throughout the Chicago government, including in the CPD, where race is a central consideration in recruitment, hiring, promotion, and retention decisions.”
The complaint cites the city’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice. According to Chicago’s municipal code, the office is responsible for developing and coordinating “racial equity action plans” across city departments.
CPD’s plan states that the department “intends to improve equitable outcomes, reduce racial disparities, and achieve racial equity and inclusion in CPD’s core work by fostering inclusivity, diversity, and fairness within the Department and its interactions with the community.”
The Chicago Police Department’s plan outlines a three-year timeline, from 2024 through 2026, and includes goals such as “assessing hiring processes for equity” and “identifying the impacts of bias” in department culture.
It also states, “CPD’s recruitment strategies aim to build a workforce that mirrors the city’s demographics while emphasizing equity and inclusivity.”
The CPD website says the equity plan extends into policing practices by “addressing systemic inequities that disproportionately affect marginalized racial and ethnic communities.”
In the complaint, Kass argued that the department’s approach assumes that disparities are caused by race alone.
Kass wrote, “[T]he Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected this logic, holding that statistical disparities alone do not justify race-conscious remedies and that Title VI prohibits intentional discrimination regardless of the stated goal of achieving equity.”
AFL alleges that the city of Chicago is violating Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through what it describes as the “express” consideration of race in hiring and enforcement decisions.
The group is requesting that the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division open an investigation.
Fox News Digital reached out to both the city of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department for comment.
The complaint follows recent legal action by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. Johnson filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice earlier this month, challenging federal requirements tied to grant funding under the Trump administration.
The lawsuit disputes conditions requiring cities to certify that grant money would not be used for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Johnson also filed a lawsuit in October challenging Department of Homeland Security grant conditions that require cities to certify they do not support programs that “advance or promote DEI, DEIA, or discriminatory equity ideology.”
That’s shorthand for “whites need not apply”.