Justice Department Secures Settlement with American Samoa Government to Resolve Employment Discrimination Case Involving Harassment of Transgender Woman

The Justice Department announced today that it secured a settlement with the American Samoa Government (ASG) to resolve the department’s lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for Hawaii alleging that the ASG discriminated against a former employee, Simeonica Tuiteleleapaga, because she is a transgender woman, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII is a federal statute that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion and sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity, and prohibits retaliation against employees for opposing discriminatory employment practices.

Under the consent decree that the district court approved yesterday, the ASG is required to pay $125,000 to compensate Ms. Tuiteleleapaga for the harassment she suffered at the hands of her supervisor. The consent decree also requires the ASG to adopt new policies and procedures to handle sex based discrimination complaints and to provide its employees training on these new policies.

“Discrimination against transgender employees is discrimination based on their sex, and no employee should have to tolerate a supervisor’s hostile comments about their gender identity,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Transgender employees must be free from discrimination, harassment or derision in the workplace. The Justice Department will not tolerate discrimination based on an employee’s sex or gender identity and will safeguard the rights of vulnerable workers, including LGBTQI+ employees.”

According to the department’s complaint, then-director of the ASG’s Department of Human and Social Services, Mr. Meki Solomona, harassed Ms. Tuiteleleapaga and another transgender employee on multiple occasions, despite the employees’ complaints about his misconduct. The complaint describes one humiliating instance when Mr. Solomona singled out Ms. Tuiteleleapaga at a department-wide meeting, where he threatened to eliminate her position, asked her if she was a “girl or a boy” and told her to “[t]ake it off” and “let us see if you are a woman.” After Ms. Tuiteleleapaga left the meeting in tears, Mr. Solomona continued his tirade for 40 minutes, repeatedly referring to her as a “thing” or an “it.” After the meeting, as described in the complaint, Mr. Solomona attempted to transfer her to another work location; misgendered her to her supervisor; attempted to terminate her; and refused to allow her routine work travel authorizations. The ASG failed to take any actions to stop his harassment.

The Hawaii District Office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) investigated and attempted to resolve Ms. Tuiteleleapaga’s charge of discrimination before referring it to the Justice Department as an enforcement action. More information about the EEOC’s jurisdiction is available on its website at www.eeoc.gov.  

The enforcement of Title VII and other federal employment discrimination laws is a top priority of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Additional information about the Civil Rights Division and its work is available on its websites at www.justice.gov/crt and www.justice.gov/crt/employment-litigation-section. 

Senior Trial Attorney Jeffrey Morrison of the Civil Rights Division’s Employment Litigation Section handled this case.