African American Ex-Firefighter Awarded $11 Million Settlement After Racial Discrimination

In a legal battle that lasted more than a decade, Brookline Town voted Tuesday to award an $11 million settlement to a Black former firefighter who said he experienced racial discrimination at the fire department.
The Boston Globe reports that Gerald Alston accused his fire department of racial discrimination in 2015 after he received a voice message from his former supervisor, Lt. Paul Pender Jr., which included racist language. The state’s Supreme Judicial Court sided with Alston in April, stating that the town’s handling of Alston’s complaints was “woefully deficient and insensitive.”