{"id":45416,"date":"2021-10-01T10:20:09","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T10:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/10\/01\/black-base-worker-faced-racism-told-to-keep-quiet-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T20:46:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T20:46:00","slug":"black-base-worker-faced-racism-told-to-keep-quiet-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/your-military\/2021\/10\/01\/black-base-worker-faced-racism-told-to-keep-quiet-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Black base worker faced racism, told to keep quiet: lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) \u2014 A Black civilian grounds-keeping and kitchen worker at an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airforcetimes.com\/news\/your-air-force\/2021\/06\/29\/wyoming-based-nuclear-missile-force-gets-new-commander\/\" target=\"_blank\">Air Force base in Wyoming<\/a> was retaliated against and ultimately fired for complaining when other workers called him racial epithets, a lawsuit said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A supervisor told Bryan Wheels to keep quiet about the racial harassment, which began soon after he was hired in 2015 and continued through 2017, said the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit against Spokane, Washington-based <a href=\"https:\/\/skils-kin.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Skils\u2019kin<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After laying off Wheels in December 2017, Skils\u2019kin didn\u2019t follow its practice of honoring his seniority by rehiring him that winter. Instead, the nonprofit gave a job to a less-senior white employee, the EEOC said in its lawsuit filed Monday in Wyoming U.S. District Court in Cheyenne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company didn\u2019t offer a Wheels a job the following spring, either, the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s quite concerning how egregious the conduct was and that the employer didn\u2019t take care of it,\u201d EEOC regional attorney Mary O\u2019Neill said Thursday. \u201cThere\u2019s such a low percentage of African Americans in Wyoming. We worry when there\u2019s very few African Americans in the workplace and there\u2019s hostility like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wheels was the only Black member of the Skils\u2019kin contract crew at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, which oversees <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airforcetimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2021\/08\/11\/another-icbm-test-successful-air-force-says\/\" target=\"_blank\">150 Minuteman nuclear missiles<\/a> in underground silos in Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Skils\u2019kin hires people for contract business and government jobs in Wyoming, Washington and Montana, according to the company\u2019s website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The nonprofit subjected Wheels to \u201csevere and persistent racial harassment,\u201d the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At one point, after Wheels complained about a coworker\u2019s racist comments, a supervisor put him on a two-man grounds crew with the worker who made the remarks, the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The EEOC sought to negotiate an out-of-court settlement with Skils\u2019kin but was unsuccessful, according to the federal agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Phone messages left Wednesday with Skils\u2019kin and F.E. Warren Air Force Base seeking comment on the lawsuit weren\u2019t immediately returned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wheels was the only Black member of the Skils\u2019kin contract crew at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, which oversees 150 Minuteman nuclear missiles in underground silos in Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":28600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":88,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[29,116,15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3338],"class_list":["post-45416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-left-column","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"LEZXE7R4EVBBBFNW4APO45M65Q","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-air-force\/2021\/10\/01\/black-base-worker-faced-racism-told-to-keep-quiet-lawsuit\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Black base worker faced racism, told to keep quiet: lawsuit - Military Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wheels was the only Black member of the Skils\u2019kin contract crew at F.E. 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