A longtime civilian employee of Robins Air Force Base, Ga., filed a lawsuit against the service last week saying he faced repeated discrimination from his bosses at the base since they learned he was gay. (Edward Aspera/78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs)
ATLANTA — A longtime civilian employee of Robins Air Force Base said he faced repeated discrimination from his bosses at the Georgia military post since they learned he was gay about five years ago, according to a lawsuit that he has filed against Frank Kendall, the service secretary.
Brandon Solomon, an information systems security officer who has worked for the Air Force since 2010, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for Middle Georgia on Sept. 3. Solomon is seeking $300,000 in damages for the discrimination that he claims he has faced since unveiling to his supervisor that he was gay in April 2019, according to the 29-page lawsuit.
Solomon charges that he had never faced discrimination, harassment or work-related discipline before revealing to his direct supervisor, Scott Buono, that he was gay after an April 2019 meeting. Buono had asked Solomon after the meeting for contact information for an individual on the base who had detailed another employee’s vehicle. Solomon provided the information to his boss and disclosed to Buono that the car detailer was his boyfriend, according to the lawsuit.
Buono then asked Solomon “several additional questions about his involvement” with the detailer and about his sexual orientation “that made Solomon somewhat uncomfortable,” the suit said. Buono then disclosed Solomon’s sexual orientation to another supervisor, Joshua Droz, without permission.
Solomon claimed after years of work without incident — including about three years working directly for Buono — he began facing repeated discrimination in the form of micromanagement, disciplinary actions for minor issues, false accusations from coworkers, and missed pay raises and promotions.
An attorney for Solomon, Kenneth Barton III, wrote Solomon could not “articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the alleged conduct” against him after disclosing his sexual orientation.
Solomon was the only Black employee in his office and, to his knowledge, the only gay employee, according to the lawsuit. Discrimination based on race or sexual orientation is barred by federal law.
“Based on the timeline of when [Solomon’s] first-line supervisor learned that [Solomon] identified as gay, and the timing of the supervisor’s unauthorized disclosure of the same to [Solomon’s] second-line supervisor, gives rise to an inference that defendant’s [the Air Force’s] actions were rooted in discriminatory intent based on [Solomon’s] sexual orientation,” the lawsuit reads. “The fact that similarly situated employees, who are not Black, were not subjected to similar actions, even when they were engaged in the exact same conduct as [Solomon], gives rise to an inference that defendant’s actions were rooted in discriminatory intent based on [Solomon’s] race.”
Air Force officials declined to comment Monday, citing the ongoing case. The service has until November to respond officially to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed after Solomon filed informal and formal U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints against Buono and Droz. At least one complaint remains open, according to court documents. Solomon charged he was demoted and moved into a new office where he cannot be promoted since he filed one of the EEO complaints.
Buono is accused in the lawsuit of taking unusual steps to monitor Solomon’s work and whereabouts after learning he was gay. Buono began tracking when Solomon signed in and out of the office using his credentials and suspended Solomon for seven days with pay later in 2019 over “documentation issues,” even though other employees “in the same position had similar issues,” according to the lawsuit.
In 2020, Solomon did not receive a standard salary increase while the other workers in his office did receive the pay boost. Later that year, Solomon was passed over for a promotion in favor of another worker in the office, “even though the [other] IT specialist was less experienced than Mr. Solomon, who met the qualifications for the position,” the lawsuit reads.
That year, Solomon was also accused by another coworker of making a threat “to bring a gun into the workplace,” which Solomon denied and was later found to be untrue. The lawsuit claimed the individual who reported Solomon made a threat was known to speak negatively “concerning members of the LGBTQ+ community,” and the employee never faced discipline for the incident.
Nonetheless, that incident was cited when Solomon faced additional discipline later that year, including a suspension for “lack of candor” about another workplace issue in which he was the only person punished when multiple employees reported the same problem.
In August 2020, Solomon was abruptly transferred to a different organization on Robins AFB. Despite the move, Buono and Droz remained his official supervisors responsible for his evaluations and salary decisions. In the lawsuit, Solomon charges Buono and Droz had his new boss monitoring him in ways that made him uncomfortable. When he approached the new supervisor about the monitoring, the new boss ended the assignment, labeling Solomon “unprofessional and insubordinate” for raising the issues, according to the suit.
Solomon raised the issues with Buono and Droz once again in 2021 to a new supervisor, the suit claims. That supervisor confirmed he was aware of the issues but also said he had done nothing to address the problem.
In January 2022, Solomon was transferred to a new position, demoted and made ineligible for promotion, according to the lawsuit. It charges Solomon has since remained in that position with little work to do “since he has not been provided with a new job description” since his transfer.
Solomon “notified upper management for [the Air Force] of the conduct alleged herein, but [the Air Force] failed and refused to take appropriate remedial action,” the lawsuit reads. “As a result, [the Air Force] is liable for the conduct at issue.”
