Seven years after it was filed, the Chicago Water Department on May 6 tentatively agreed to settle a racial discrimination lawsuit for $5.8 million. The Department was accused of blocking promotions for Blacks and subjecting them to a racially hostile work environment that attorneys said existed for decades.
Other details of the settlement were not released; the deal has not been finalized and must be approved by the Chicago City Council.
The settlement came one month before the lawsuit was set to go to trial in federal court
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly reportedly had yet to rule on whether former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, now serving as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, would have to testify.
The suit was filed in 2017 as a probe by Joseph Ferguson, the city inspector general, whose investigation revealed the Department allowed a pervasive culture of racism. The probe uncovered numerous racist emails were exchanged between top supervisors at the Water Department.
Then-Mayor Emanuel fired Water Management Commissioner Barrett Murphy, Managing Deputy William Bresnahan and Superintendent Paul Hansen, son of former Alderman Bernard Hansen. Emanuel appointed Randy Connor, who replaced Murphy as the Department’s first Black commissioner.
The plaintiffs include: Derrick Edmond, an operating engineer; Katherine Ealy, an acting chief operating engineer; Craig Robinson, an engineer; Eddie Cooper Jr., a water chemist; Vicki Hill, a former staff assistant, fired in 2015 after 32 years at CDWM; Robert T. Laws, Jr., laborer; and Adebola Fegbemi, a former environmental engineer.
In all, about 20 current and former employees reportedly testified at a 2018 hearing, with the goal of pressuring the city to settle the 2017 lawsuit.
All plaintiffs alleged they faced repeated acts of discrimination in a verbally abusive workplace that gave preferential treatment to white employees. According to the complaints, Black employees are subjected to “unwelcome racially charged conduct,” assigned fewer desirable shifts, denied training opportunities, harassed based on race, intimidated and denied overtime.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the racism festered in the Water Department for decades.
The suit states, “Black employees are intentionally blocked by a ‘Glass Ceiling,’ a transparent barrier of deliberate racism obstructing the opportunities of the upward movement and advancement afforded to non-Black employees of the Department.”
While the suit alleged white employees were promoted at a higher rate than Black employees, the complaint stated, “The Department has created an employment scheme that requires Black employees to work three times as long as their Caucasian counterparts in order to receive a promotion.”
In one alleged incident, Edmond, a 33-year veteran assigned to the South Water Purification Plant, testified at a hearing that he was forced to undergo 18 interviews for a single promotion because the job apparently was reserved for “a young white candidate.”
“What they want you to do is get discouraged and don’t go to the interview no more — and many of us do that. But I said I’m not stopping. So I … kept on going. Then, they gave me the job and they turned around and took it back,” Edmond said.
The complaint also alleged that leadership in the Department “deliberately leaves job transfers open and unfilled until a hand-picked Caucasian candidate is available.”
Edmond said he consistently applied for promotions but was denied, despite successfully passing the prerequisite examinations. In the complaint, Edmond said he was denied promotion and transfer opportunities because of his race.
In the workplace, Edmond said he was harassed regularly and has been called a “nigger” and referred to as “you people” consistently in the Department. According to the complaint, Edmond has been forced to request early retirement rather than “continue to endure the daily hostile work environment.”
Another plaintiff, Ealy, said she was also denied promotions and transfer opportunities and was called a “fu—– whore and a bitch.”
Hill, another plaintiff, worked at the Department from 1983 to 2015. She said she was “deliberately forced to retire six months short of receiving the maximum amount on her pension.”
The complaint also alleged that, “The City of Chicago has failed to properly train, supervise and discipline their Commissioners, which has therefore given them comfort and a sense that they can violate the civil rights of others and not be disciplined.
“As a result of the customs, policies and practices of the City of Chicago, the unlawful discrimination committed against the Plaintiffs went uninvestigated and undisciplined.”
