The city of Chicago has reached a tentative $5.8 million settlement with Water Department employees who said they were subjected to racist comments from managers and shorted on overtime and promotions.
Announcement of the settlement comes just a month before the case was to go to trial. Judge Matthew Kennelly had yet to rule on whether former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, now serving as U.S. ambassador to China, would have to testify.
The deal must still be finalized and approved by the City Council. Details of the settlement were not filed in court, but an attorney for the workers disclosed the amount.
“The racism lasted for decades and affected countless Black employees, which raises the question of why the city’s uppermost leaders failed to act,” said attorney Vic Henderson. “The sad and most obvious answer is that they did not care. Shame on them.”
The agreement covers a dozen current and former Water Department employees who worked under District Supt. Paul Hansen, who was fired by Emanuel when a probe by the city inspector general exposed numerous racist emails he had exchanged with subordinates.
In 2022, the city paid out nearly $1 million to a bricklayer in the department who said he was subjected to abuse, taunts and retaliation at the hands Hansen, a former City Council member’s son who ran the department from 2015 to 2017.
Water Management Commissioner Barrett Murphy and Managing Deputy William Bresnahan also lost their jobs in a shakeup at the Water Department that followed the release of the emails, which showed supervisors frequently exchanging emails with racist, sexist and homophobic jokes.
A federal judge overseeing the case last year declined to grant class-action status that would have allowed all minority employees of the department to seek damages.
Lawyers for the 12 plaintiffs hired an expert who found that Black workers got significantly less overtime assignments, were promoted less often while also being disciplined more frequently, according to filings in the case.
“It was plain to anyone who looked that the racism cascaded from the very top of the organization like water travels down a hill,” Henderson said.