Dive Brief:
- SHRM allegedly rescinded a job offer after a candidate requested to have her trained service dog accompany her to the office as a reasonable accommodation, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Virginia Human Rights Act, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday (Torres v. SHRM).
- The applicant, who received an offer to be a senior specialist in SHRM’s product management department, said her service dog was necessary to detect and alert her “before her blood glucose level rises or falls to a dangerous degree due to her Type 1 diabetes,” per court documents.
- SHRM said the organization is aware of the court filing and is reviewing it. “Out of respect for the process, we’re not going to make any public statement at this time,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement to HR Dive.
Dive Insight:
The plaintiff said SHRM’s violations of the ADA were “willful and deliberate, and SHRM committed them with malice and reckless indifference to [her] protected rights,” according to court documents.
“SHRM is an organization in the business of human resources management and advises its membership on the requirements of the ADA. Despite that, it brazenly disregarded its statutory obligations and rescinded its offer of employment to [the plaintiff] after she requested a reasonable accommodation to bring her trained service dog with her to work,” per the filing in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The plaintiff previously “suffered hypoglycemia so severe that she has experienced life-threatening blackout episodes” about 10 times per year, according to the lawsuit. Since being paired with her trained service dog eight years ago, she’s only experienced one such incident, according to the complaint.
After first requesting more information about the plaintiff’s accommodation request, SHRM allegedly denied the request on the grounds that she “was able to perform the essential duties of the job without the presence of her service dog,” the lawsuit said. The plaintiff was permitted to submit more information, which allegedly showed that relying solely on a glucose monitoring system, as the organization suggested, would be insufficient.
“After receiving this additional information from [the plaintiff] regarding the reasons why her service dog is the only reasonable accommodation to protect her from life-threatening events, SHRM, without any further engagement, abruptly ended the interactive process and withdrew its offer of employment,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit comes less than two weeks after a Colorado jury returned a verdict against SHRM in a race discrimination and retaliation trial, awarding the plaintiff in the case $11.9 million in damages.
In the 2022 lawsuit, a former instructional designer alleged that her supervisor “systematically favored” White reports over her non-White reports and that the HR organization retaliated against her and set her up to be fired after she complained.
SHRM is preeminent in the HR world and bills itself as a trade organization that “creates better workplaces where employers and employees thrive together.” However, the organization has received criticism in recent years over its pullback on equity messaging, its rebranding of its annual Inclusion conference to “SHRM Blueprint” and an allegedly “punitive” culture.
