On or around Nov. 30, 2012, plaintiff Sheila McKnight, a black, part-time cashier in her 50s, learned that a full-time position opened at her place of employment, the Miramar MCAS Commissary, which runs commissaries throughout the United States, is headquartered at Fort Lee, Va., and is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. Although she had worked for the commissary since Nov. 30, 1992, the full-time position was given to someone else, and not McKnight. McKnight sued the Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, alleging racial discrimination, gender discrimination, age discrimination, and color discrimination (based on her skin tone). Hagel stepped down as Secretary, and the new Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, was subsequently substituted in as a defendant. McKnight claimed that she worked in a discriminatory work environment and that her not being elected to the full-time position was an example of that. She contended that four other competitors also claimed that they were victims of discrimination at the store, had problems being promoted, and all struggled to receive equal pay. McKnight claimed that a few supervisors were from the Philippines and that some managers were Pacific Islanders, primarily from the Philippines. Thus, she contended that Pacific Islanders at the store were given preferential treatment and that there were a disproportionate number of Pacific Islander employees versus black employees. Defense counsel argued that there was no discrimination at the store. Counsel contended that the other individual was selected for the full-time position because of superior performance and that race, age, gender, and color played no part in the decision. Defense counsel noted that the director of the commissary that made the decisions is white and that of the 12 part-time employees selected for full-time schedules, two are black and five are women. One of those employees is a female who was just one year younger than McKnight. Defense counsel contended that the director determined that McKnight’s department — the “front-end” — was the most adequately staffed of all the departments and that as a result, he decided to convert just one sales store checker from part-time to full-time. Counsel noted that the person chosen was five years older than McKnight. In addition, defense counsel contended that the commissary agency’s equal employment opportunity office investigated McKight’s claims and rejected it on Feb. 14, 2014. The office concluded that the commissary had nondiscriminatory reasons for not converting McKnight to a full-time position and that McKnight had not shown that the commissary’s reasons were a pre-text for discrimination., McKnight sought recovery of unspecified damages.