Tavi Ishmael and Jen Livingston thought their career dreams had come true when they were hired as paramedics by the Chicago Fire Department.
But their dreams turned into a nightmare at the fire academy, during a discriminatory test of physical agility designed to wash out women.
On Wednesday, both women got a measure of redemption — and financial compensation, at a heavy cost to Chicago taxpayers.
The City Council signed off on an $11.25 million settlement to compensate Ishmael, Livingston and 10 other women. All had been hired as paramedics, then were flunked out of the fire academy by a “discriminatory,” post-hiring test.
“I’m glad it’s over. It’s been a long time coming. But I don’t think this is something that’s gonna end their practices of how they treat women. I’m sure there’ll be other lawsuits after ours based on the same things or even worse,” Ishmael, 46, told the Sun-Times.
The test was so demanding and unrelated to the skills needed as a paramedic that four of the 12 plaintiffs suffered “career-ending” hip and back injuries during the testing. One woman literally “tore her hip open," said Marni Willenson, an attorney representing the impacted women.
One part of the test required paramedic candidate to hold a 25-pound dumbbell in each hand while stepping on and off an 18-inch-high box for two minutes, while keeping up with the cadence of a 112-beats-per-minute metronome.
Five of the women, including Livingston, were ultimately rehired as paramedics by the department — currently run by Chicago’s first female fire commissioner, Annette Nance Holt. Their settlements range from $200,000 to $400,000, plus retroactive seniority and pensions.
The other six who are unable to take the job, including Ishmael, will receive $475,000 to $1.3 million. Attorney fees in the long-running case are pegged at $4.25 million.
“It’s still a male-dominated type of job and they still feel like women don’t belong," Ishmael said. "That’s why they still do things to try to disqualify us or put us out of the job when we have every right to be there and are just as good at the job as they are."
Livingston, 46, chose to rejoin a Chicago Fire Department that remains a bastion of white males.
“I just wanted to fight for what is right. ... I’ve been in EMS for over 25 years and I deserved to have the same opportunity as everyone else. This may not change everything or it may change just a little bit. But, I’m very glad with what the outcome has been so far,” said Livingston, now a supervisor.
“Unfortunately, it does have to fall on some of the females to stand up for what’s right," she added. "The stuff that bothers a lot of people I try not to let it bother me because it would just eat me up inside more than what I’ve already gone through.”
The City Council also approved a $2.5 million settlement for the estate of a man killed by the driver of a stolen car. That driver was fleeing police in Englewood at the time of the April 2019 crash. And the Council OK'd a $410,000 payout to the family off a man who was wrongly arrested and beaten by a Chicago police officer in 2019. The officer has since been fired.
Another pending settlement was rejected by the Finance Committee and apparently will go to trial. That one is a $7.6 million settlement to a man whose murder conviction was tossed out after a key witness admitted to providing false testimony.
In other action before an August break that will include the Democratic National Convention, the City Council:
• Gave the CTA the green light to extend the No. 9 Ashland Ave. bus route north to the newly renovated Ravenswood Metra Station.
• Changed the end date of a video surveillance and automated ticketing crackdown in the downtown area. The increased enforcement is intended to make the streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians. Bureaucratic and contracting complications have delayed the start of the crackdown, so the end date now will be two years after the first ticket is issued — once the program starts.
• Cracked down on so-called “hate fliers” at the behest of Ald. Timmy Knudsen (43rd), whose North lakefront ward has been blanketed with literature that's "hateful" and sometimes specifically antisemitic.
• Authorized the Chicago Department of Transportation to deny permits to any athletic event deemed to pose an “unreasonable risk to the health and safety of participants, bystanders or city personnel.”
• Approved a 10-year concession agreement for a restaurant that will bring a piece of Chicago’s historic Bronzeville neighborhood to O’Hare Airport’s international terminal.
• Confirmed Mayor Brandon Johnson’s appointment of two new members to the Zoning Board of Appeals, including former Ald. Helen Shiller (46th).
