Steel giant must pay $1.2 million in bias suit

Steel giant Nucor Corp. must pay $1.2 million to a half-dozen former and current black employees for racial discrimination at its northeast Arkansas plants.

A predominantly white jury awarded the damages to five Arkansans and a Tennessean last week in federal court. It agreed they suffered a racially hostile environment because of job-site images of nooses and company-sold symbols of the Confederacy, repeated references to apes and threatening gestures from co-workers and supervisors. Including punitive damages against the company, the jury awarded each man $200,000.

Last week’s verdict follows another blow dealt to Nucor Corp. in a related case in South Carolina. Black workers there have claimed similar discriminatory practices. And the 4th U.S. Circuit Court ...