Wisconsin Manufacturer Settles Religious Accommodation Request

Generac Power Systems, a Wisconsin generator manufacturer, reached an agreement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to resolve for monetary and injunctive relief a religious accommodation charge involving an employee’s request to use biological pronouns for another employee, the federal agency announced.

According to the EEOC’s reasonable cause finding, Generac violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it did not fully engage in the reasonable accommodation interactive process before denying a religious employee’s request to use biological sex-based pronouns when referring to a trans-identified employee, even after the religious employee informed Generac that using non-biological pronouns went against his sincerely held religious beliefs.

Generac’s religious accommodation process failures also resulted in the religious employee’s resignation.

In addition to monetary relief for the affected employee, the agreement requires Generac to update its religious accommodation policies and provide training with the goal of promoting greater understanding and effective handling of religious accommodation requests going forward.

Source: EEOC