48 hours after her sworn EEO testimony, everything unraveled
A former USAID officer's racial discrimination and retaliation claims will move forward after a federal court found her termination timeline raised enough red flags.
Janet Thomas, an African American woman who worked as a Foreign Service Education Development Officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2015 to 2019, brought six claims against the agency following her termination. On March 25, 2026, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia trimmed the case down but kept its most potent allegations alive – racial discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The timeline at the center of the case is hard to ignore. Thomas alleges that she began the equal employment opportunity counseling process in November 2018 while stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria. She claims her supervisors then escalated a pattern of adverse actions against her – unfounded performance concerns, a letter of admonishment based on what she says were false claims, a demand to repay previously approved travel expenses, and an unfavorable tenure evaluation. She finished her Nigeria assignment in April 2019 and was reassigned to Kabul, Afghanistan.
Then came September 2019. Thomas gave sworn testimony to USAID's EEO office on September 11. Two days later, she was recalled to Washington. Within weeks, she was placed on administrative leave and then...
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