Chicago Fire Department makes progress, but not enough, toward ending racial, sexual discrimination

Retaliation

A Chicago Fire Department that remains 91% male and 64% white has made some, but not all, of the changes needed to stop sexual and racial discrimination and protect employees who complain about it from retaliation, a new report concluded Tuesday.

Last year, Chicago’s now-former Inspector General Joe Ferguson shined a glaring spotlight on the white male bastion of city government and demanded immediate changes in policy, training and employee protection.

The audit was accompanied by a survey in which 73 of all 285 respondents, both male and female — that’s 26% — reported experiencing sexual harassment “at least once” at CFD.

Even more troubling was the rate of sexual harassment of women. Out of 45 female survey respondents, 28 — 62% — reported being

Catholic religious order Society of the Divine Word exporting abusive priests

Catholic Sexual Abuse

Even before he was ordained a Catholic priest, the Rev. Ronald Lange went to Ghana in 1968 to do missionary work.

In a profile by a community newspaper years later, Lange spoke of his commitment to learning about Ghana while teaching at schools there and leading a parish with more than a dozen worship sites.

“The people are just so happy to see you,” Lange, a member of the Society of the Divine Word’s Chicago province, based near Northbrook, was quoted as saying. “You don’t even have to be a good priest.”

And he wasn’t, as his order now acknowledges.