Attorneys for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot admitted in a court filing that her office applied a racially discriminatory interview policy for two days.
Lightfoot faces a civil rights lawsuit filed by the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) and Judicial Watch because he denied an interview request to DCNF reporter Thomas Catenacci, who is white, after the Democratic mayor stated that he only gave in-person interviews to non-white journalists.
The filing, obtained by Judicial Watch, came in response to a court order directing the mayor’s office to clarify its interview policy and whether it would continue to apply it. Lightfoot’s attorneys argued that its policy of granting interviews exclusively to non-white journalists had only applied for a specified two-day period and that the court order against the interview policy was therefore no longer necessary.
“As the mayor announced in the letter of May 19 invoked by the plaintiffs, the conduct occurred ‘on the occasion of the second anniversary of his inauguration’ as mayor,” the letter said. “For these reasons, the lawyers indicated that the request for preliminary precautionary measures by the plaintiffs is debatable, since the contested conduct does not continue.”
The attorneys also said the mayor’s office “has no plans” to reinstate the policy of racial exclusion in interviews, according to Judicial Watch.
“Mayor Lightfoot’s office today shockingly confirmed to a federal court that it discriminates on the basis of race in the conduct of public office,” said Judicial Watch Chairman Tom Fitton, in a press release June 11. “This racism is blatantly unconstitutional.”
Last week, Lightfoot defended his refusal to give interviews to white journalists. The mayor said that this refusal was part of a message “long awaited on the diversity of newsrooms.”
“I am the mayor of the third largest city in the country. I am an African American woman, to state the obvious. Every day when I look through my podium, I don’t see people who look like me, ”Lightfoot said during an interview with CNN. “But more specifically, I don’t see people who reflect the richness and diversity of the city.”
“It cannot be that, in the city of Chicago, with all the talent that we have, we cannot find diverse journalists of color,” he added.
Lightfoot’s interview policy sparked a debate over whether public officials can choose their reporters. Gregory Pratt, a Chicago Tribune reporter who covers Chicago mayoral issues, said his team turned down an offer to do an interview after learning about the mayoral interview policy.
“I am a Latino reporter for @chicagotribune whose interview request was granted for today,” Pratt wrote. “However, I asked the mayor’s office to lift their condition for others and when they said no, we respectfully canceled. Politicians cannot choose who covers them ”.
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