A former Georgia GOP employee has sued the party and claims she was discriminated against because she is black.
Qiana Keith of Hall County says in the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Atlanta, that she overheard co-workers refer to her as the “house (racial slur),” showed her disrespect and humiliated her.
The suit claims that Keith, 35, was fired after complaining to her superiors about her co-workers’ behavior, and it seeks damages and lost wages under the federal Civil Rights Act.
Officials with the Georgia Republican Party did not return calls for comment. Anne Lewis, the Republican Party’s attorney, said Keith was fired for “consistently poor job performance.”
More than two months after being fired, Keith “contacted the party through a lawyer and made claims of race discrimination and retaliation,” Lewis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a statement.
“We immediately undertook a full investigation of those claims and found that there was no merit to any of them,” Lewis said. “The party and Chairman (John) Padgett will vigorously defend themselves in court against these completely unfounded claims.”
Keith says in the suit that she supports the GOP, although state records shows she has voted in both Republican and Democratic primary elections. She formerly was an intern for an unnamed Republican radio host, the suit says. The host helped her get the job with the state party.
That radio host was Martha Zoller of WGAU AM 1340 out of Gainesville. Zoller told the AJC that she met Keith about six years ago and hired her as an intern.
“She was very good,” Zoller said. “She was going to school, she had children. She was very nice. We’ve been friends since then.”
Zoller spoke to Padgett on Keith’s behalf and she was hired in June 2013 to be his assistant. She was fired March 31.
Keith claims she initially got along well with her co-workers. But she said she later overheard the party’s finance director, Margaret Poteet, complain about her to accounting director Karen Hentschel. The complaint alleges that Hentschel responded, “Don’t worry about her; she is just the house (racial slur).”
Keith also alleges that she was bossed around by Hentschel and Poteeet, who were not her supervisor, and forced to park in a spot farthest from the party’s Buckhead office.
Keith says co-workers also gossiped about her over a 2002 felony conviction in Montana and had to have her party wages garnished to make restitution.
The party was already aware of her past, Keith said, and Zoller told the AJC she personally informed Padgett of the conviction. Keith later told Hentschel of the situation, to arrange to have her pay garnished.
She later overheard another conversation between Hentschel and Poteet, before a staff meeting, in which Poteet said, “I didn’t even know there were black people in Montana,” the suit says.
Keith said it was clear that Hentschel had told Poteet about her conviction and that the comment was made as other party employees gathered for the staff meeting.
Keith said she repeatedly complained to party executive director Adam Pipkin about the way she was treated by colleagues but that his only response was to berate her or to tell her she must have been mistaken about how Poteet and Hentschel talked about her.
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