EEOC Sues Walmart for Disability Discrimination

MILWAUKEE - Walmart Inc. violated federal law when it refused to accommodate an employee who required a job coach due to his intellectual disability and subjected him and a coworker to a hostile work environment based on their disabilities, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today.

According to the EEOC's lawsuit, in November and December 2021, supervisors harassed two employees with intellectual disabilities who worked as cart pushers at the Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin location, calling them "stupid" and "slow." One employee said his supervisor called him a "retard" and shut the store's door on him, sending him home early. When he learned the store manager would not address his supervisor's harassing conduct, he quit because he could not return to the hostile work environment.

The lawsuit also alleged Walmart denied one of the employees the reasonable accommodation of a job coach, refusing to speak with job coaches assisting the employee at no cost to the company. Store managers and human resources representatives did not allow the job coaches inside the facility and repeatedly refused to discuss the employee's schedule, training needs, need for breaks, and harassment experience.

"Employers have a legal obligation to work with employees who need accommodations for disabilities and to stop and prevent disability-based harassment," said Victor Chen, an EEOC spokesperson. "Individuals with disabilities, like all workers, deserve respect and have a right to earn a living without being subjected to discriminatory harassment in the workplace."

Such alleged conduct violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits an employer from discriminating on the basis of disability and requires employers to grant reasonable accommodations unless they pose an undue hardship. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Walmart Inc., Case No. 25-cv-1480) in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

For more information on disability discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/disability-discrimination. For more information on reasonable accommodations, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc-disability-related-resources. For more information on harassment, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/harassment.

The EEOC's Chicago District Office has jurisdiction over Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and North and South Dakota, with Area Offices in Milwaukee and Minneapolis.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division; the EEOC is responsible for investigating charges against state and local government employers before referring them to the DOJ for potential litigation. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government's employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov. Stay connected with the latest EEOC news by subscribing to our email updates.