EEOC sues Walmart, charges test bias against disabled

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Risk Management

Judy Greenwald

September 13, 2023 Reprints

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Walmart Inc. in a putative class action for allegedly discriminating against disabled employees by subjecting them to unlawful testing.

The company said in a statement that the program that is the lawsuit’s focus was terminated several years ago, and that it plans to defend itself in the litigation.

The agency said in the lawsuit, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Walmart Inc., Walmart Stores Arkansas LLC, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Monday that Walmart introduced a “Pathways Graduation Assessment Program” in 2015 that included a “Pathways Graduation Assessment” test that was self-administered and computer-based.

The lawsuit said the test screened out, “or attempted to screen out” a class of individuals with disabilities and subjected them to termination after they failed it.

“The commission alleges the PGA was not job-related and consistent with business necessity” and Walmart also did not provide a reasonable accommodation for the PGA, the lawsuit said.

It said by January 2017, it required newly hired hourly associates at its supercenters and neighborhood market stores across the U.S. to complete the program and terminated two Arkansas employees with disabilities who failed the test after three attempts, even though they had satisfactorily performed their jobs.

It said one of the fired employees was deaf and the second had intellectual and speech/language disabilities.

The EEOC is charging Walmart with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, and seeking back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, compensation for lost benefits and an injunction against future discrimination.

“Employees with disabilities who are successfully performing their jobs should be commended, not terminated,” said Edmond Sims, acting district director of the EEOC’s Memphis, Tennessee, district office, in a statement issued Wednesday.

Walmart said in a statement, that it “has been a top employer for those with disabilities for years. We created our Pathways program with the needs of all associates in mind, and this included advising them of accommodation options through up to seven audial and visual pop-up notifications as they took the training and assessment. We discontinued the program several years ago and plan to defend the company.”

EEOC sues Walmart, charges test bias against disabled - Business Insurance (2024)

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