According to NBC news The Kroger supermarket chain will pay $180,000 to settle a religious discrimination lawsuit after two former employees alleged they were fired from an Arkansas grocery store in 2019 for refusing to wear logos they thought resembled a rainbow Pride flag.
The settlement was reached earlier this week and announced Thursday by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that investigates allegations of job discrimination on the basis of legally protected classes, such as race, sex or religion.
Kroger denied in court filings that it fired the women as a result of discrimination about their religious beliefs, and said the apron uniforms, which had a rainbow-colored heart, were not intended to express support for the LGBTQ community.
Judge Lee Rudofsky, a district court judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas and a Donald Trump appointee, signed off on the settlement, which was reached after years of litigation.
The agreement is between Kroger Limited Partnership I, a subsidiary of the Cincinnati-based supermarket chain, and the EEOC and requires a store in Conway, Arkansas, to create a “religious accommodation policy” and beef up the religious discrimination training it gives store managers.
Faye Williams, a regional EEOC attorney, commended the newly agreed upon religious accommodation policy.
“The parties in the case worked in good faith to resolve this matter, and the Commission is pleased with the resolution,” Williams said in a statement.
As part of the settlement, Kroger will pay the two employees more than $70,000 each in back pay, which is part of the overall $180,000 settlement.
The EEOC filed the civil suit against the store in September 2020. The suit alleged that the store unlawfully fired two of its employees and violated civil rights laws by discriminating against them because of their religion.
The employees — Trudy Rickerd, who was 57 at the time she was fired, and Brenda Lawson, then 72 — have a “sincerely held religious belief” that “homosexuality is a sin,” the suit said.
Court documents state that in late April 2019, the Conway store started requiring some of its employees to wear a new uniform adorned with a rainbow-colored heart.
The apron prompted at least 10 employees at the store, including Rickerd and Lawson, to immediately express disapproval about the logo, which they thought looked similar to the LGBTQ Pride flag.
Kroger said in court filings displaying support for the LGBTQ community was not the intention of the uniforms.
