Black employee wins $100K lawsuit after being harassed for asking that ‘Blue Lives Matter’ flag be removed from office
A settlement was reached last week in the lawsuit filed by a Black employee in Portland, Oregon, who said she was harassed repeatedly after asking that a Blue Lives Matter flag be removed from her office.
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In January, Karimah Guion-Pledgure, a corrections technician, filed a lawsuit saying that she and other Black co-workers complained about the flag saying that it disrespected the Black Lives Matter movement.
In response, she said that she was harassed, OregonLive reported.
In response to the flag hanging in the office for six months, Guion-Pledgure decided to display an “equity wall” that put up photos of minorities killed by police, the suit stated.
Managers told her to take down the photos, the lawsuit says, but she refused because the Blue Lives Matter flag remained.
That same day, Guion-Pledgure said in the suit, two sticky notes were placed on her equity wall which read: “Thanks a lot” and “Bitch.”
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According to the suit, managers then switched up the rules for displaying photos and said all personal photos displayed needed to be smaller than 5-by-7 inches (13-by-18 centimeters).
Guion-Pledgure was awarded $100,000 but had to resign from her position as a county employee as a requirement of the deal. She can reapply for a county job.
“She’s disappointed that she has to leave there and that they couldn’t make it a safe and welcoming work environment,” her attorney, Ashlee Albies told the Associated Press. “They say they’re working on that, and we hope they really are.”
