Apple has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a religious discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) last year. Here are the details.
Last September, the EEOC filed a lawsuit against Apple claiming that the company had fired a Virginia Apple Store employee because of his religion and in retaliation for complaints of religious discrimination.
In the lawsuit, the EEOC claimed that despite consistently receiving positive performance reviews, the employee was fired after converting to Judaism and requesting scheduling accommodations “for observing his Sabbath by not working Fridays and Saturdays.”
Apple never publicly commented on the case, and court documents show that the company denied wrongdoing. However, Reuters reported today that the company has now agreed to pay $150,000 to settle the claims.
From the settlement consent decree (via Law360):
Within thirty (30) days from the date of entry of the Decree, Defendant shall pay Tyler Steele a total of $150,000 in the amounts and forms specified below:
Under the terms of the settlement, Apple has agreed to, among other things, provide training on religious discrimination and accommodation requirements to certain employees in the relevant Northern Virginia retail market, and report denials of religious accommodation requests and complaints of religious discrimination to the EEOC for the two-year duration of the consent decree.
Finally, the consent decree notes that the settlement does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing by Apple, and explicitly mentions that “Apple denied these allegations but agreed to resolve the lawsuit.”
To learn more about the settlement, follow this link.
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Marcus Mendes is a Brazilian tech podcaster and journalist who has been closely following Apple since the mid-2000s.
He began covering Apple news in Brazilian media in 2012 and later broadened his focus to the wider tech industry, hosting a daily podcast for seven years.
