In the wake of three such incidents reported over the last year, Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, asked all hands to report racist acts and threats at nuclear-weapon sites.
In an email dated Wednesday, Hruby slammed the acts as “offensive,” “inappropriate” and warned that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would not tolerate racially motivated “threats of violence,” such as the open display in June at the Y-12 National Security Complex of a hangman’s noose.
Hruby sent her all-hands message about a week after news broke that an employee of Consolidated Nuclear Security, the Y-12 management and operations contractor, was credibly accused of displaying a noose at the under-construction Uranium Processing Facility and subsequently fired for his actions. A trade union had offered a large reward for information leading to the perpetrator.
Hangman’s nooses are commonly understood as a racist threat against black people.
“Incidents involving supremacy slogans or symbols are offensive and inappropriate,” Hruby wrote in her letter. “An incident involving a noose is a threat of violence.”
Hruby also described two other racist acts, each of which occurred at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 2021, someone who was never caught wrote “a derogatory and racially charged statement” on a whiteboard in a meeting room used by the lab’s protective force subcontractor, Hruby wrote.
In July 2022 at the lab, someone hung a rope “bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to a noose … from an electrical conduit at the Los Alamos National Laboratory TA-3 Steam Plant near a construction site where work is being performed under contract to NNSA.” Hruby wrote.
The NNSA administrator concluded her letter by urging all hands across the enterprise to report racist behavior to supervisors or the Office of Human Resources.
