5 white male law enforcement officials accuse Philadelphia of denying them promotions as a consequence of race and intercourse, lawsuit says | EUROtoday

Five white male Philadelphia law enforcement officials have accused their metropolis and division of denying them promotions as a consequence of their race and intercourse, a brand new lawsuit claims.

America First Legal, a bunch co-founded by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller that defends conservative causes within the courts, filed a federal class-action lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of the law enforcement officials who declare they had been handed over for development in favor of cops who had been both Black or ladies.

Lieutenants Christopher Bloom, Kollin Berg and Joseph Musumeci had been denied a promotion to captain, and Sergeants Marc Monachello and Leroy Ziegler Jr. had been handed over for development to lieutenant in November 2025, in accordance with the lawsuit.

America First Legal declare that every cop had “high civil exam scores, strong service records, positive annual performance reviews, and significant law-enforcement experience” and that they had been denied their promotions ”in favor of non-white male candidates with decrease civil-service examination scores and decrease rankings on the promotion-eligibility lists.”

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The lawsuit challenges Philadelphia’s “Rule of Five” coverage, which it says the town created in 2021 to extend the illustration of minority and feminine candidates in supervisory positions. The “Rule of Five” coverage, which America First Legal calls “illegal and discriminatory,” changed the town’s “Rule of Two” coverage.

In Philadelphia’s “Rule of Two” coverage, solely the highest two candidates on the civil service eligibility checklist had been allowed to be chosen for promotion, in accordance with the lawsuit.

When then-Councilwoman Cherelle Parker, who’s now Philadelphia’s mayor, launched laws in 2021 to eradicate the “Rule of Two,” she mentioned, “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.”

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“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,” Parker mentioned. “This legislation is by no means a ‘silver bullet’ to making our City’s workforce, and particularly our City’s upper management, more reflective of Philadelphia’s demographics, but it is a necessary and important step.”

When reached out to by The Independentthe Philadelphia Police Department and the mayor’s workplace declined to touch upon the case, citing the “active litigation.”

“Federal civil-rights law prohibits employers from making promotion decisions based on race or sex,” Nick Barry, Senior Counsel at America First Legal, mentioned in a press release in regards to the lawsuit. “Put simply, employers cannot use protected characteristics to override merit.

“Promotions must be based on excellence, experience, and performance, not on the race or sex of the candidate.”