WKYS Women's Empowerment Brunch 2024 Save The Date
93.9 WKYS Featured Video
CLOSE

An African-American chef filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against his former boss Madeleine Pickens, claiming that she asked him to cook “Black people food” at her Nevada dude ranch, reports The Associated Press.

Chef Armand Appling, who was fired in 2014 for what he said was retaliation for “complaining about a hostile work environment,” said that Pickens, who is White, told him to not cook “White people food,” writes the news outlet:

Armand Appling says the wealthy philanthropist and ex-wife of Oklahoma energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens told him fried chicken, BBQ ribs and corn bread would be perfect for the tourists who pay nearly $2,000 a night to stay in plush cottages, ride horses and take Wild West “safaris” on ATVs at her Mustang Monument Wild Horse Eco-Resort.

He says Pickens’ stereotypical references were commonplace at the Elko County ranch stretching across 900 square miles on the edge of the Ruby Mountains about 50 miles west of the Utah line.

Among other things, he says Pickens, who is white, instructed him to terminate two other black kitchen staffers — one she referred to as her “bull” or “ox” and another who had “too much personality.” He says she told him they didn’t “look like people we have working at the country club” and didn’t “fit the image” of the staff she wanted at the ranch.

U.S. District Judge Miranda Du granted a dismissal motion for the lawsuit at a hearing last week in Reno, but is allowing Appling to refile an amended complaint seeking unspecified damages from Pickens’ nonprofit, Save America’s Mustangs, by Jan. 13, reports The Huffington Post.

SOURCE: The Associated Press, The Huffington Post

SEE ALSO:

CNN, Turner Accused Of Racial Discrimination In Class Action Lawsuit

Airbnb Sued For Racial Discrimination

Chef Sues Nevada Dude Ranch Owner Who Allegedly Wanted ‘Black People Food’  was originally published on newsone.com