Pittsburgh’s Human Relations Commission today announced that it found in favor of a dog walker who accused a Department of Public Works (DPW) employee of using a homophobic slur, awarding the complainant $10,000 and ordering improved training in the department.

The case was brought by Michelle Cook, of Sewickley, who said a parks maintenance manager made a reference to her perceived sexual orientation and punched her during a dispute over whether she could walk 12 dogs on a Highland Park hockey court. The 2024 incident led to a two-day hearing of the commission in December.

The commission concluded that the incident constituted discrimination based on presumed sexual orientation through statements and aggression. In addition to $10,000 to address embarrassment and humiliation, the commission ruled that the city must pay Cook’s attorney fees.

The commission also orders the city to:

• Inform its employees that they are liable under the city’s code barring discrimination
• Train all public works staff on public engagement, discrimination liability, conflict de-escalation and trauma-informed communication
• Retrain public works supervisors on investigation of incidents and disciplinary processes
• Install signage where dogs are not permitted.

Mayor Corey O’Connor’s administration had no immediate comment in response to questions from Public Source, and a spokesperson said officials were still reviewing the decision. The incident occurred during the tenure of then-Mayor Ed Gainey.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

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City must pay $10K to dog walker who alleged assault, homophobic slur

by Rich Lord, Pittsburgh's Public Source
March 26, 2026

<h1>City must pay $10K to dog walker who alleged assault, homophobic slur</h1> <p class="byline">by Rich Lord, Pittsburgh's Public Source <br />March 26, 2026</p> <p>Pittsburgh’s Human Relations Commission today announced that it found in favor of a dog walker who accused a Department of Public Works (DPW) employee of using a homophobic slur, awarding the complainant $10,000 and ordering improved training in the department.</p> <p>The case was brought by Michelle Cook, of Sewickley, <a href="https://www.publicsource.org/pittsburgh-city-employee-alleged-discrimination-human-relations-commission/">who said</a> a parks maintenance manager made a reference to her perceived sexual orientation and punched her during a dispute over whether she could walk 12 dogs on a Highland Park hockey court. The 2024 incident led to a two-day hearing of the commission in December.</p> <p>The commission concluded that the incident constituted discrimination based on presumed sexual orientation through statements and aggression. In addition to $10,000 to address embarrassment and humiliation, the commission ruled that the city must pay Cook’s attorney fees.</p> <p>The commission also orders the city to:</p> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li>Inform its employees that they are liable under the city’s code barring discrimination</li> <li>Train all public works staff on public engagement, discrimination liability, conflict de-escalation and trauma-informed communication</li> <li>Retrain public works supervisors on investigation of incidents and disciplinary processes</li> <li>Install signage where dogs are not permitted.</li> </ul> <p>Mayor Corey O’Connor’s administration had no immediate comment in response to questions from Public Source, and a spokesperson said officials were still reviewing the decision. The incident occurred during the tenure of then-Mayor Ed Gainey.</p> <p><em>Rich Lord is the managing editor at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at </em><a href="mailto:rich@publicsource.org"><em>rich@publicsource.org</em></a><em>.</em></p></p> <p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://www.publicsource.org/city-pittsburgh-discrimination-case-dog-walker/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://www.publicsource.org&quot;&gt;Pittsburgh&#039;s Public Source&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/www.publicsource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/cropped-ps_circle_favicon_blue.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;</p> &lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://www.publicsource.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=1331079&amp;amp;ga4=G-CCLXQK5C14&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://www.publicsource.org/city-pittsburgh-discrimination-case-dog-walker/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/publicsource.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

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