Tourism Dept. facing discrimination lawsuit

Kay Milliner-Kitchens has filed an amended complaint against the Department of Tourism that claims the department is “easily characterized by nepotism, discrimination and a variety of hostile and unwelcome working conditions,” according to documents filed in U.S. District Court.

The former acting director of sales, Milliner-Kitchens initially filed the complaint in August, and her attorney Namosha Boykin filed an amended complaint Wednesday against the V.I. government, the Department of Tourism, and Commissioner Joseph Boschulte. The defendants have not yet filed a response to the complaint.

According to the lawsuit, Milliner-Kitchens was born on St. Thomas but has lived stateside since the age of 13 and is currently a resident of Atlanta. She has been an off-shore Tourism employee for 20 years, and “had no discipline, reprimands, redirections or unsatisfactory evaluations in her personnel file.” The department workplace “became discriminatory and rapidly deterioriated beginning in 2019, at or around the onset of the tenure of its current Commissioner,” Boschulte, according to the complaint.