School board candidate files lawsuit against former employer Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, alleging discrimination based on race, age and gender

Spencer is a 57-year-old Black woman. She worked for Alyeska Pipeline Service Company for 17 years after retiring from the U.S. Army as a captain in 2005. She is currently running for Seat C on the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District Board of Education.

Spencer’s attorney, Oliver C. Mitchell Jr. of Pennsylvania, alleges that Alyeska and Swart subjected Spencer to a hostile work environment and treated her differently than non-Black, male and younger employees.

Spencer received “exceptional” annual evaluations and had healthy relationships with her supervisors, who were mainly white, until 2021, when Swart became her primary supervisor, according to the lawsuit.

Swart, according to his LinkedIn, was an aircraft maintenance technician in the South African Air Force between 1987-1997. Apartheid, the system of racial segregation in South Africa, ended in the early 1990s.

“He complied with the laws of South Africa that generally required the separation of races, and he embraced these traditions,” Mitchell wrote in the lawsuit. “Swart had difficulties working with any strong and capable Black woman, including Spencer.”

Swart allegedly criticized Spencer’s status as a team player, communicated that he did not want Spencer on his team, expressed that he preferred working with another white man and reduced the amount of work assigned to Spencer, the lawsuit claims. He allegedly called a younger, female colleague his “work wife.”

Spencer filed at least 15 complaints with the company’s Human Resources Department over three years. Swart reportedly confronted Spencer multiple times about her complaints to HR, the lawsuit states.

The tension escalated in June 2024 when Swart directed the company’s security team to conduct an audit of Spencer’s presence at work during business hours. A security employee examined Spencer’s badge data but did not account for times that Spencer forgot her badge, entered the building through an open warehouse, or entered the building with someone else, the complaint states. Spencer wrote that the company does not require salaried employees to clock-in or badge-in to the building.

Swart and an HR employee reportedly forced Spencer to admit the alleged attendance deviations. Swart reportedly told Spencer “You just don’t fit in. Everybody says so.”

Spencer resigned from the company in August 2024.

“This was done under duress, and it certainly was not voluntary. Swart had oppressed (Spencer) so much that she was no longer able to work for APSC — the environment was intolerable,” Mitchell wrote.

Spencer filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in January 2025 and received a right to sue notice.

Spencer claims that the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company and Swart discriminated against her on the basis of her race and gender and retaliated against her for reporting and opposing the discrimination. She says that she suffered the loss of past and future income and suffered mental anguish and emotional distress as a result of the alleged discrimination.

The case was assigned to Chief Judge Sharon L. Gleason. Alyeska Pipeline Service Company did not respond to the News-Miner requests for comment. Spencer also declined to comment.