Apple has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's claims that the manager of a retail store made antisemitic comments and denied a Jewish longtime employee's requests for time off before firing him.
Apple and the EEOC unveiled the settlement in a joint filing in Alexandria, Virginia, federal court on Friday, nearly a year after the commission filed the lawsuit.
The manager of the Apple retail store made antisemitic comments and denied a Jewish longtime employee's requests for time off before firing him
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The EEOC claimed the manager of the Reston, Virginia, Apple store told the worker, Tyler Steele, that he smelled like body odor, forced him to work on Saturdays, and warned him not to discuss the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel with coworkers.
Apple denied wrongdoing in court filings. The company and the EEOC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.
The EEOC routinely files religious discrimination cases, but under Chair Andrea Lucas, a conservative Christian who was appointed to the post by Republican President Donald Trump, the commission has placed a renewed emphasis on the issue. That has included netting more than $25 million in settlements since last year in a series of cases involving employers' COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
According to the lawsuit, Steele started working at the Reston Apple store in 2007 as an "Apple Genius" providing advice and technical support to customers, and converted to Judaism in 2023.
A new manager hired that year denied Steele's requests not to work on Fridays and Saturdays, the EEOC said. The Shabbat begins at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday.
The EEOC said Steele was fired in January 2024, a few days after refusing the manager's request to work on a Friday.
The lawsuit accused Apple of religious discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC was seeking unspecified back pay and other damages for Steele, including punitive damages for "malicious and reckless conduct."