Baltimore DPW manager claims in lawsuit she was fired for exposing "racially hostile" workplace

A former manager at Baltimore's Department of Public Works has filed a civil lawsuit against the city, alleging rampant racial discrimination and retaliation for speaking about unfair and unsafe working conditions. 

WJZ Investigates obtained her lawsuit, which you can read here. 

The allegations 

Linda Batts, the first Director of Equity for Baltimore's Department of Public Works, is blowing the whistle on what she calls a "racially hostile" workplace with "inhumane working conditions" for employees including those who pick up the trash. 

"They were subjected to retaliation, more aggressive surveillance in the workplace, alienation and blackballing by their colleagues and coworkers and eventually termination. This kind of mistreatment, illegal treatment, breeds nothing but a chilling effect," Batts said in a news conference outside city hall Monday. 

She told WJZ, "These employees, almost universally though working in two different departments, characterized their working environment as severely hostile, retaliatory, akin to a pre-Emancipation Proclamation, colonial plantation-type environment where the overseer scrutinized their every move."

Batts worked for the city from July 2019 until she was fired in March of 2021 and recently received the right to sue from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

She claimed women working at the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant had to leave a building to use the bathroom while men had access to restrooms on site.

She also highlighted pay inequities.

"A 14- and 15-year-old youth worker makes 3/4 as much as a newly hired solid waste worker. Where is the equity there?" Batts asked. 

"There was a pervasive chilling effect when I brought these issues to management's attention. Many of them were disregarded, and further harsh treatment was levied against employees," she said. 

When sanitation worker Ronald Silver II died after collapsing in the heat along his route in 2024, investigations by the city's inspector general revealed retaliation against those who complained along with a lack of training and work safeguards. 

City, DPW respond

Mayor Brandon Scott has since stressed reforms have been made.

"We are committed to the occupational safety and health of all of our civil servants including those in DPW," the mayor said in October 2025. 

In response to Batts' lawsuit, the city told WJZ Investigates, "As this matter is the subject of litigation, we will reserve comment for the appropriate judicial forum."

DPW said, "The City of Baltimore and its Department of Public Works remain committed to equity, inclusion, and compliance with all applicable laws." 

Batts' attorney Thiru Vignarajah told reporters, "There are 1,000 ways that the tragedy of Ronnie Silver could've been avoided. Ms. Batts was sounding the alarm. The inspector general was sounding in the alarm. Countless employees within the Department of Public Works were sounding the alarm. Some of them were retaliated against. Some of them were just ignored. And some of them were fired."

Vignarajah said of Batts, "She tried to work from within the system to root out the very conditions that resulted in the death of Ronald Silver, the very conditions that resulted in the inhumanity that sanitation workers and wastewater engineers have faced for years, and her reward for that was being given a pink slip."

Batts is seeking lost wages, damage for emotional distress and her lawsuit said she wants to vindicate her civil rights and make sure no other public servant faces punishment for opposing discrimination.