The Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) alleges in a lawsuit filed Thursday that a male gay
worker was sexually assaulted and harassed at work.
Filed in federal court, the complaint
alleges that Wyoming-based Rocky Mountain Casing Crews did not
protect Michael Allyn, a driver who worked at the company's
Williston, North Dakota facility, the Williston
Herald first reported.
Allyn worked for the company from
January 2011 to April 2015. He reported the abuse to supervisors but
the offensive conduct continued until he left.
“Among other things during this
period, Allyn's male co-workers called him offensive and homophobic
slurs; they defaced company vehicles with sex-based remarks about
him; they painted a truck Allyn was known to use with pink polka
dots, hearts, and rainbows; and they left him pornographic magazines
with titles like 'Chicks With Dicks,'” the
complaint reads, adding that “one of Allyn's male co-workers
attempted to sexually assault him.”
The lawsuit also claims that Allyn's
direct supervisor “directed offensive jokes about gays to or around
Allyn, made Allyn the butt of derogatory sex-based comments, gave him
children's toys and board games, and gave him a hat with a Spanish
slang word for homosexual on it.”
The EEOC said that this is the first
sexual harassment lawsuit it has filed in North Dakota.