A Suffolk County jury returned a verdict Thursday saying the Boston Water and Sewer Commission must pay $1 million to a former employee for retaliating against him after he filed a lawsuit against the public utility alleging racial discrimination.
The jury rejected Terrance Williams’s claims that the commission discriminated against him because he is Black, but found it retaliated against him for bringing those claims.
Williams, of Dorchester, alleged the commission had a longstanding practice of underpaying, undervaluing, and underpromoting its Black employees, according to his attorney.
Williams worked for the commission for more than 30 years. He filed the civil lawsuit in 2022, alleging he was repeatedly passed over for promotions in favor of white co-workers who were less qualified and less experienced.
The agency fired Williams in May 2025.
Williams’s attorney, Nick Carter, said the verdict is an “important result” that affirms that the commission “really needs to be looked at by city and state leaders on discrimination and retaliation issues.”
The commission targeted and terminated Williams “because he stood up for the rights of Black workers and sued BWSC for discrimination,” Carter said in a statement. Because the jury found that “the commission’s retaliation was extreme and outrageous,” the verdict included a $400,000 award for punitive damages, he said.
“Terrance Williams is proud to have prevailed in his fight,” Carter’s statement said.
He added: “Mayor Wu and state leadership need to look closely at this public agency because it has a track record of race discrimination and this kind of retaliation should not be tolerated in one of our important public agencies.”
In a statement Friday, the commission’s attorney, Brian T. Kelly, said, “Mr. Williams falsely accused the BWSC of discriminating against him, and we are pleased the jury rejected both racial discrimination claims and found no liability on either one.”
He added that the commission will appeal the verdict on the retaliation claim “because it is ridiculous to work a second job for the sheriff’s department while you’re on the clock for the BWSC and that’s why he was fired.”
Carter said in a statement Friday, “The jury had lots of evidence of others at Boston Water and Sewer engaged in similar conduct and they were not terminated. The jury obviously found that the commission’s stated reason for terminating Mr. Williams was false.”
The utility provides water and sewer services for the city of Boston.
Williams, a former candidate for the Boston City Council, first began working for the commission in 1988. He was manager of operations from 2017 until his termination. When he filed his complaint in 2022, he alleged that his weekly salary of $1,828.79 was significantly lower than his white counterparts.
His complaint said employee assignments were routinely made on the basis of race, and that his white colleagues were allowed to skirt the agency’s strict Boston residency requirements, and, despite their lack of college degrees, were promoted to positions that Williams was told required one.
Williams’s civil complaint outlined the career track of four white colleagues who surpassed him in salary, promotions, and career opportunities.
Soon after Williams filed his lawsuit, the commission began engaging in “a pattern of systematic retaliation against him,” the complaint said, from reprimanding him for parking in the wrong spot, to altering his performance reviews, to his being passed over for interviews for promotions.
Williams has a storied past.
When he was 15, he was was found delinquent of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon in Brighton Juvenile Court. (He grew up in Mission Hill and graduated from Mission Church High, a Catholic school, in 1987.)
Governor Maura Healey granted Williams a pardon in 2023 for the 1984 juvenile delinquency. The victim did not press charges and remains best friends with Williams.
Williams later founded Mighty Mission, a nonprofit youth basketball program. It took inner-city youth out of the city to compete in basketball tournaments.
In 2013 and 2015, Williams unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Boston City Council as a non-partisan candidate.
The commission receives the bulk of its budget from ratepayers, and provides drinking water and sewer services to more than a million people daily. It’s overseen by a three-member board of commissioners appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council. It employs about 450 people.
Shelley Murphy of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.