Nathan Hager, wtop.com
WASHINGTON — An African-American former Defense Department employee has filed a federal lawsuit against the agency that terminated her, charging racial discrimination.
Mirlin Toomer, 45, of Upper Marlboro, is seeking at least $300,000, plus medical expenses and back pay from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, where she worked as an analyst since 2005.
In her final year at the agency, she claims she was subjected to a repeated pattern of racially-tinged harassment and verbal and physical threats by white coworkers and superiors.
According to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in D.C., Toomer complained to a superior, Diane Stiger, in May 2010, about one of her coworkers threatening to cut off her wig. Toomer claims Stiger pressured her to drop the complaint and accused her of slandering her coworker.
A few weeks later, according to the lawsuit, Stiger displayed a black monkey doll wrapped in rope outside her office.
“Toomer was horrified,” the lawsuit reads. “For her and many Americans, a lynch rope symbolized the Jim Crow era, a notorious period in American history where white men violently lynched black men and women.”
The lawsuit claims Stiger kept the doll on display for two weeks before a fellow coworker urged Toomer to report it to security, who photographed and removed it.
Toomer says she took several sick days from work, and even spent time in the hospital due to her distress over the monkey display, but she says her superiors treated her as “Absent Without Leave” during that time and threatened to revoke her security clearances because of the missed work.
The lawsuit accuses two of her superiors of false imprisonment and physical abuse during one argument over her missed work time in September 2010.
Toomer was eventually fired, effective July 6, 2011, for not requesting sick time from her supervisor.
The lawsuit describes Toomer as a consistent recipient of outstanding job performance evaluations, including six citations in her final full year of employment.
A National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency spokeswoman says it would not be appropriate to comment on the lawsuit while it is under litigation.
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