For the second time in six weeks, a judge has ordered the federal government to pay a settlement to a victim of gender discrimination at Tyndall Air Force Base. A jury awarded former civil engineer Bert Lent 481-thousand dollars in damages Wednesday.
Lent witnessed and reported sexual harassment and gender discrimination against females co-workers in the base's Civil Engineering division. He claimed his supervisors did nothing to end the practices, and then began to retaliate against him for reporting the violations. Lent was ultimately terminated.
In September, another federal jury ruled in-favor of one of Lent's co-workers after she sued for gender discrimination. Bridgett Keegan won a 975-thouand dollar settlement.
The legal problems for the base and the Air Force don't end there. Another Civil Engineering division employee named Alisa Swann-Davis settled a gender and pregnancy discrimination lawsuit last month, before it went to trial. The amount of that settlement has not been made public.