City employees and Chicago police officers participating in extremist groups could face discipline and firing under an ordinance proposed Wednesday that aims to root out extremism in city government.
The Chicago Police Department and Mayor Brandon Johnson have faced growing calls to fire police officers with ties to hate and extremist groups. With those concerns in mind, Ald. Matt Martin, 47th Ward and chair of the City Council’s Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight, said the city needs to quickly investigate allegations and cease employment for those actively participating in extremism groups.
“Extremism is on the rise, and so, we think that this is the right time to move forward with this prohibition, to make sure that if you are seeking to attack and overthrow government that you aren’t simultaneously collecting a government check,” Martin said.
Martin’s proposed ordinance defines extremist activities as supporting the overthrow of any local, state or federal government by violence or other unlawful means. It identifies more than a dozen activities that could count as active participation in an extremist organization, such as paying dues, attending meetings, recruiting others, or posting and sharing content online that promotes extremist activities. The ordinance directs the Human Resources Department to work with CPD and the Office of Inspector General to develop and update a list of extremist organizations. It also allows for the city’s Human Resources department and Office of the Inspector General to investigate and discipline city employees violating the rules.
The legislation follows joint investigation by WBEZ and the Sun-Times that identified CPD officers whose names appeared on the membership list of the Oath Keepers, a group involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Despite pledging no tolerance for cops with connections to extremist groups, the Chicago Police Department’s internal investigative arm declined to punish eight officers or reopen its investigation as the OIG called for. A CPD list of “criminal and biased organizations” last year did not include any far-right groups with which officers have associated.
Meanwhile, the mayor’s office has begun to act on a recommendation by the OIG to convene a working group to assess extremism in the ranks of CPD and city government more broadly. The group is led by Deputy Mayor for Community Safety Garien Gatewood and Chief Equity Officer Carla Kupe.
“This is not just limited to extremism in CPD. We’re talking about how do we look at the entire hiring apparatus for the city, to make sure we have the best and brightest folks working here in the city of Chicago,” Gatewood said in an interview with WBEZ and the Sun-Times.
City departments involved in the task force include CPD, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, the Office of Public Safety Administration and the departments of law and human resources, Gatewood said.
The OIG recommended last April that Johnson convene a task force to take a “whole-of-government approach” to eliminating extremism in CPD. At the time, the Johnson administration did not commit to doing so.
Gatewood said Thursday that city departments began working on the issue “well before an initial sit-down meeting” of the working group. The mayor’s office plans to discuss the new task force with community groups at a town hall Sunday, according to the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
Inspector General Deborah Witzburg didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.
Jeff Tischauser, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center, urged the city’s working group to solicit feedback from residents about which groups locally they’re concerned with, as well as tapping experts who research extremism.
Martin “did his homework,” Tischauser said, who praised the ordinance’s focus on extremist activities, both in-person and online, but cautioned against relying on a government-maintained list to identify fluid extremist groups.
“Why do we need to create a list — a government-held list that defines or that labels certain groups extremists? Looking through United States history, government-controlled lists are just set for an abuse of power,” Tischauser said. “There needs to be some accountability for who and what entities are on the list.”
Gatewood said he had not yet reviewed Martin’s proposed ordinance, and that it would be “premature” to discuss whether any proposed rules developed by the working group would apply retroactively to officers who have already been investigated for their ties to extremist groups.
When asked Wednesday whether participating in extremist activities should lead to discipline for city employees, Johnson said he would examine Martin’s ordinance and stressed the city has to have “strong guidelines.”
“My goal is to make sure that all of our departments have individuals that have the same love and regard for anyone, regardless of their ethnicity, their sexual orientation or their background,” Johnson said.
The proposal to discipline employees with extremist ties builds on another effort to ban rioters who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol from future city employment.
Martin and a group of City Council members filed the legislation this week in the wake of President Donald Trump pardoning roughly 1,500 people arrested in connection with the insurrection.
Gatewood said the renewed focus on rooting out extremism will continue regardless of the Republican Party’s control of the White House.
“Racism has been indoctrinated in our country and in this world for a very long time, regardless of which political party is in power. This is why we cannot let this portion of our work be political, because there’s racism on every side, in every corner of the world,” Gatewood said.