By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) -The U.S. agency that enforces workplace anti-discrimination laws sued Apple on Tuesday, claiming the manager of a retail store made antisemitic comments and denied a Jewish employee’s requests for time off before firing him.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the manager of the Reston, Virginia, Apple store told the worker, Tyler Steele, that he smelled like body odor, forced him to work on the Jewish Sabbath and warned him not to discuss the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel with coworkers.
The lawsuit in Alexandria, Virginia federal court accuses Apple of religious discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC is seeking unspecified back pay and other damages for Steele, including punitive damages for “malicious and reckless conduct.”
Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
The EEOC routinely sues employers for discrimination based on sex, race, disability, pregnancy and other protected traits. Under Acting Chair Andrea Lucas, a conservative Christian who was appointed to the post by Republican President Donald Trump, the commission has placed new scrutiny on religious discrimination.
In a statement in August, Lucas claimed that during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration “religious protections too often took a backseat to woke policies.”
According to Tuesday’s 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 Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday.
Steele complained to Apple about the manager twice, but the conduct did not change, according to the lawsuit. The EEOC said Steele was fired in January 2024, a few days after refusing the manager’s request to work on a Friday.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Stephen Coates)
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