PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia School District was ordered to pay millions to a Newtown-based security firm after a jury found school administrators discriminated against the company based on race.

Security & Data Technologies Inc. sued the district and late superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman after school officials canceled a $7.5 million contract with the company in 2010 and instead awarded the work to a minority-owned company that never bid on the job, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

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SDT alleges in its lawsuit that it had started preliminary work to install surveillance cameras at 19 schools when Ackerman in September 2010 told several administrators at a meeting that she did not like giving work to contractors “who she said did not look like her,” according to the news site.

A former district procurement official who attended the meeting, John Byars, testified that Ackerman said she would see to it that “all these white boys didn’t get contracts.” He said Ackerman questioned why “a black firm (couldn’t) get it,” and ordered the camera contract rerouted to IBS Communications as an “emergency contract.”

IBS Communications is not on a state-approved list for no-bid contracts, while SDT is. IBS Communications is a minority-owned business, while SDT is owned by two white guys.

The SDT lawsuit – filed against Ackerman, the school district, and the School Reform Commission state oversight board – contends the “case arises from an episode of blatant, admitted race discrimination” by all three entities. SDT wanted $2.1 million for lost profits and damages that resulted from the discrimination.

Ackerman denied steering the contract to IBS until her death in 2013.

An eight-member mostly white federal jury agreed that the district and Ackerman used racist discrimination in awarding the contract, but found that the School Reform Commission was not racially motivated.

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“My client has been struggling with this fact of being rejected for a contract because of race for nearly six years,” Michael Homans, SDT attorney, told The Inquirer. “It’s been a long hard journey. Justice was served.”

The jury ordered the district and Ackerman to pay SDT $2.3 million to settle the claim, though district spokesman Fernando Gallard said officials “are extremely disappointed with the outcome” and Ackerman attorney Jesse Klaproth said he will “plan on exploring our appellate options.”

The recent ruling stems from an Inquirer report in 2010 that cited a district source who exposed the racist non-bidding process for contracts. The source, Francis Dougherty, also sued the district when Ackerman and another administrator allegedly retaliated against him by placing him on leave and recommending that the SRC terminate his employment amid an investigation into the contract, the Inquirer reports.

A jury concurred with the retaliation last year and the SRC agreed to pay Dougherty $750,000 to settle his suit.

Former district procurement official Byars has also sued the district because of the camera contract, alleging he was made a scapegoat. A fourth lawsuit, filed by former Office of School Safety commander Augustine Pescatore, alleges he was put on leave and later demoted during the investigation into the camera contract.

Those lawsuits are ongoing, the Inquirer reports.