5 White Philly Cops Sue Metropolis Over Anti-white DEI Coverage That Denied Promotions
The police department in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, might soon have to scrap its anti-white diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies that promote unqualified or less-qualified women and minorities over qualified or more-qualified white men.
Five plaintiffs denied promotion in favor of lesser qualified blacks and women have sued the department for denying them promotions based on a written rule that permits flagrant discrimination against white men.
Representing the plaintiffs is conservative public-interest law firm America First Legal.
“Rule of Five”
Kollin Berg, Christopher Bloom, and Joseph Musumeci sought promotions from lieutenant to captain in November’s promotions, while Leroy Ziegler, Jr. and Marc Monachello sought promotion from sergeant to lieutenant.
The five men, all seasoned department veterans, are white.
All the promotions were denied, the lawsuit argues because the city altered its long-standing “Rule of Two” policy, “which required the appointing authority to select from among the top two candidates on the civil-service eligibility list for each promotional vacancy,” the lawsuit observes.
The policy, strictly “merit based,” had been in place for “decades.”
But that policy kept many blacks and women out of the department’s top slots, so the rules had to change. Replacing it was the nebulous and anti-white “‘Rule of Five,’ which was instituted for the express purpose of increasing the representation of minority and female candidates in supervisory positions … at the expense of white men.”
“In May 2021, then-Councilmember Cherelle L. Parker (now Mayor of Philadelphia) introduced legislation to eliminate the ‘Rule of Two’ and replace it with a ‘Varying Rule’ (commonly called the ‘Rule of Five’) that would give appointing authorities discretion to select from a larger pool of candidates for each promotional vacancy,” the lawsuit explains:
When introducing this legislation, then-Councilmember Parker declared: “It is one thing for an employer to say, ‘Black Lives Matter,’ and an entirely different thing for an employer to make real, substantive changes that ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion.” …
Then-Councilmember Parker further stated: “Our municipal government is one of the largest employers in the City of Philadelphia, and for too long, the Rule of Two has held back Black and Brown employees, either from obtaining that entry-level job or from getting that promotion.”
Thus was the Rule of Two scrapped and replaced with the Rule of Five. That rule is not merit-based, but rather is rooted in the soft bigotry of low expectations. The suit argues:
Under the “Rule of Five” that the city had adopted for the purpose of limiting the number of white men receiving promotions, the city is given more discretion and latitude to promote lower-ranked officers over those with higher rankings and better scores on the civil-service examination, and the city used this latitude and discretion to award promotions to lower-ranked female and minority officers at the expense of higher-ranked white men.
That rule enabled the defendants, Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel, Deputy Commissioner Krista Dahl-Campbell, and Candi Jones, the city’s human resources chief, to deny the promotions. Bethel and Jones are black; Dahl-Campbell is a white woman.
Also black is the mayor, Parker, who led the crusade against the Rule of Two.
The lawsuit notes that Bloom ranked eighth on the captain’s eligibility list with a civil examination score of 90.83. Berg ranked 11th with a score of 90.28, while Musumeci ranked 13th with a score of 90.01. After interviews, the lawsuit alleges, Dahl-Campbell told the men they were passed over, with no explanation. She did cite the anti-white Rule of Five.
As intended, it permitted the defendants to promote candidates with lower scores, the lawsuit alleges:
Of the 23 candidates that the Philadelphia Police Department interviewed for promotion to captain, six were passed over for promotion in favor of individuals with lower scores on their civil-service examination.
Five of the six passed-over individuals were white males and the remaining passed-over individual was a black male.
All three female candidates who interviewed for a promotion to captain received their promotion, and no female candidates for promotion were passed over in favor of individuals with lower scores on their civil-service examination.
White men composed 70 percent of the top 10 candidates for captain, and 73 percent of the top 15. But just 50 percent of white men were promoted.
“The defendants reached all the way down to 14th and 17th on the captain eligibility list to promote black male candidates … while bypassing the white male candidates ranked 8th (Bloom), 9th (Andrew Furtak, a non-plaintiff), 11th (Berg), and 13th (Musumeci) — all of whom had higher civil-service examination scores [than the blacks],” the lawsuit observes.
The lawsuit speculates that Berg, Bloom, and Musumeci would have been promoted were they black.
The story for Ziegler and Monachello is the same. The defendants promoted lesser-qualified candidates over them to lieutenant.
Lodge #5 of the Fraternal Order of Police denounced the hate-whitey DEI policy. It “filed grievances” and notified the federal Justice Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about the discrimination.
The 189-page lawsuit, which includes the city’s written, anti-white policies, lists five causes of action, including violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, and Pennsylvania’s Human Relations Act.
Crazy Sheriff
The city’s police leaders aren’t the only problem for residents. Sheriff Rochelle Bilal threatened to arrest Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents if they attempt to enforce federal immigration laws in the city. Last month, speaking in the unintelligible argot of the American ghetto, she fumed about the shooting of hate-ICE lesbian Renee Good in Minneapolis.
Bilal called ICE “made-up, fake, wannabe law enforcement because what they do is against not only legal law, but the moral law.”
“If any of them wanna come in this city and commit a crime, you will not be able to hide, nobody will whisk you off,” she vowed:
You don’t want this smoke because we will bring it to you.