Robins Air Force Base staffer sues, says bosses discriminated after learning he was gay

Caption

Robins Air Force Base front gate sign in Houston County, Georgia.

Credit: Edward Aspera/78th Air Base Wing Public Affair

A Robins Air Force Base employee is suing the Air Force, alleging he was discriminated against after his supervisors found out he was gay, according to court records.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, says Brandon Solomon is seeking $300,000 in damages over the allegations that two of his supervisors discriminated against and harassed him after they found out he was a gay man. He also mentioned in the lawsuit that he’s the only Black man at his office, while his coworkers and supervisors were white.

The lawsuit was filed against Frank Kendall, the secretary of the Department of the Air Force. Others who supervised Solomon were named in the lawsuit but weren’t listed as defendants. A lawsuit only represents one side of an argument, and Kendall’s team hasn’t filed a legal response yet. Robins Air Force Base officials declined to comment on the allegations.

Solomon is an information systems security manager who still works for the Air Force. He never disclosed to his supervisors or colleagues that he was a gay man until April 2019, when one of his supervisors, Scott Buono, approached him after a meeting asking for the contact information of a car detailer who happened to be Solomon’s boyfriend.

After Solomon said he was in a relationship with the car detailer, Buono pressed for more information on his involvement and sexual orientation, which made Solomon uncomfortable, according to the lawsuit.

By this point, Solomon had worked for the Air Force for approximately nine years and had never been subjected to disciplinary action until his sexual orientation became known, according to the lawsuit.

What were the allegations?

Solomon started facing different treatment at work after his conversation with Buono, according to his lawsuit. He said he felt his supervisors monitored him more heavily afterward, inquiring about audits he performed at work, checking his clock-in times despite the fact that he had flexible hours and kept up with his work, and removing him from a special access program.

The lawsuit says Buono admitted “he had requested that other employees monitor Mr. Solomon’s actions in the workplace.”

Solomon was suspended multiple times for issues that other employees had, but they were not treated as harshly, according to the lawsuit.

Solomon alleged that his bosses, Buono and Joshua Droz, also said he’d been accused of making a comment about “bringing a gun into the workplace,” but they later told Solomon there was no evidence he said that and the accusation came from a coworker, according to the lawsuit. Solomon alleged in the court document that the coworker was “known to make negative comments in the workplace concerning members of the LGBTQ+ community.”

That employee wasn’t disciplined over the false allegation, Solomon’s lawsuit alleged. 

Solomon also stopped being invited to lunches or other gatherings, according to his lawsuit, and wasn’t awarded a raise despite award-winning performance at his job. When he was awarded a raise later on, he alleged it was minimal compared to his colleagues and resolved or unfounded problems were brought up as part of the reasoning.

Solomon was abruptly moved to another organization inside the Air Force base in August 2020, and Buono and Droz no longer supervised him, according to his lawsuit. But months after the reassignment, Buono and Diaz were still identified as his rater and supervisor for appraisals.

In October 2020, management found classified material in a cubicle Solomon used to work at, which was locked in a filing cabinet, according to his lawsuit. Management argued that finding the documents wasn’t a security incident, but Buono noted the situation in Solomon’s file anyway.

Solomon filed a complaint with the Air Force Base’s designated Equal Opportunity office based on the discrimination he faced from Buono and Droz. A 14-day suspension that he was facing was lowered to seven days.

After Solomon was reassigned, he faced issues with his new boss, Paulette Polk, over his time card punches which were rectified but still led to an argument, according to Solomon’s lawsuit. He alleged that she repeatedly asked for his whereabouts, which made him and others uncomfortable.

Polk told Droz she was ending Solomon’s assignment due to “unprofessionalism and insubordination as a direct result of the incident,” according to the lawsuit.

Droz and Buono told Solomon he’d be reassigned again, but they stalled the reassignment once they found out Solomon made a complaint against them, according to the lawsuit.

Solomon had back and forth with his supervisors over the access he lost to a special access program and his suspensions, which he said he wasn’t given an opportunity to appeal.

A year later, under a new supervisor named Timothy Avera, Solomon informed him about the discrimination he faced with Buono and Droz. Avera told Solomon that he was aware of the complaint he made, but confessed that he took no action, according to the lawsuit.

Solomon was again assigned to another organization within the Air Force base but struggled to perform his duties because he lost access to a special program and was no longer be eligible for promotion, according to the lawsuit.

In the last few years, Solomon has repeatedly tried to file formal complaints against superiors over harassment, his lawsuit says.

Solomon is suing the secretary of the Air Force as a representative of the agency, according to his lawyer, Kenneth Barton III. His lawyer said the people accused of misconduct would be involved in the case as witnesses.

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Telegraph.