‘Just want my voice to be heard’: Former Kansas City VA worker files discrimination lawsuit

A former Kansas City Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center employee has filed a race discrimination lawsuit.

At a news conference Thursday morning outside the U.S. District Court in downtown Kansas City, Grecian Gill said she wants justice.

The sign she held read, “Stop racism at the VA.”

The lawsuit was filed this month in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri and names VA Secretary Denis McDonough and the United States as defendants. It accuses the VA of race discrimination, sex discrimination, creating a hostile work environment, and retaliation.

A Kansas City VA spokesman said the VA does not comment on pending litigation.

Gill worked in the radiology department as a medical support assistant and received two successful performance evaluations during her probationary one-year period.

The lawsuit points to two incidents in which Gill argues she was discriminated against.

First, in January 2020, she arrived on time at the MRI door, but it was locked, the lawsuit reads. Gill called the VA police to open the door. When no one answered the door, she had to limp to an emergency entrance and asked to talk to a supervisor about the door. She had recently had foot surgery making the trip difficult, the lawsuit says. Gill told them about her recent surgery and said she would be grateful if the door was opened in a timely manner.

An officer “became aggressive” with Gill, the lawsuit states, demanding her identification badge and he followed her to her desk where he “invaded her personal space and berated her about the time the door had to be opened, as she called a colleague.”

Gill filed a harassment complaint against the officer later that day.

In the second incident, on an extremely snowy day in January 2020, Gill followed the practice of the department to submit a leave slip so she could get home before the roads got too dangerous, as per policy, according to the lawsuit. All of the other radiology employees had already left for the day and there were no additional patients, the lawsuit alleges.

The suit says that she texted her supervisor multiple times after submitting her slip to leave, but received no response.

The next week, she was charged with AWOL. No other workers who left that day, the suit says, were charged with AWOL.

The lawsuit alleges that the VA “routinely falsely charges African American workers with AWOL as a pattern or practice of discrimination and disparate treatment.”

Gill’s employment was terminated on Feb. 4, 2020. The lawsuit says it was “due to racial discrimination.”

It asks for a jury trial.

“I just want my voice to be heard,” Gill said Thursday. “At the end of the day, I want to be treated fairly. And I want to see justice. That’s why I’m here today.”

She said the alleged discrimination impacts everyone, from other employees to patients. She wants to see change happen in management.

“If you are in my situation and you have been treated (unjustly) I would say come forward, let your voice be heard,” Gill said.

The lawsuit follows a line of racial discrimination cases filed against the Kansas City VA.

Maritas “Tess” Lustado-Lybarger, a Filipina single mother and former Kansas City VA employee, in July last year filed a lawsuit alleging the VA discriminated against her based on her race, color, sex, and disability, and that she was retaliated against.

Lustado-Lybarger was continually “degraded and humiliated,” according to that lawsuit, when her supervisors talked to her “disrespectfully,” yelled at her in front of her coworkers, called her slow, and made fun of her national origin and size. She is under 5 feet tall.

“It’s hard, but I have to do this for the employees of VA and VA military people and my son,” she said during Thursday’s press conference. “It’s for the future. Please be equal to your employees.”

Last June, Charmayne “Charlie” Brown went public alleging she had experienced racial discrimination at the Kansas City VA.

She had been called “Aunt Jemima,” repeatedly passed over for promotions, and filed 18 complaints of racial discrimination during her 17 years working there.

Other current and former VA employees have shared their stories with many asking their names not be used for fear of retaliation. They described systemic discrimination against Black employees.

Civil rights organizations have called for change at the hospital.