Black Chicago Transit Worker Awarded $99,000 for Job Retaliation

The Chicago Transit Authority subjected a Black electrician to a hostile work environment because he complained about race discrimination and harassment, a federal jury decided.

Lasona McKinney was awarded $99,000 on that claim by the jury, according to a US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois docket entry Monday. But the jury found that McKinney failed to prove he was subjected to a racially hostile work environment, it said.

The verdicts were reached following a four-day trial before Magistrate Judge Sunil R. Harjani.

Harjani ruled June 23 that a disputed fact issues warranted a trial in McKinney’s ...