Walmart settles EEOC suit over deaf applicant hiring discrimination

A request for an ASL interpreter should have sent Walmart’s Decatur hiring process into a documented, timely accommodation track. Instead, the applicant says he was left waiting, the interview never moved forward, and three hearing applicants were hired for the stocking job around the same time.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said May 13 that Walmart Stores, Inc. and Walmart Stores East, LP agreed to pay $230,000 and accept court-ordered changes to settle the disability hiring discrimination suit. The case, EEOC v. Walmart Stores, Inc., and Walmart Stores East, LP, Civil Action No. 21-cv-02080, was pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois and had been set for trial in June 2026 after the court rejected Walmart’s motion for summary judgment.

The applicant had applied online for a stocking position at Walmart Store #2728 in Decatur, Illinois. When Walmart later reached out to schedule an interview, he requested an American Sign Language interpreter. According to the EEOC, the store screener said she would work on getting an interpreter, but Walmart did not follow up. Even after the applicant called back to ask about the interview, the company still did not contact him again.

That breakdown is the part store leaders and People Leads should pay attention to. Once a candidate asks for a reasonable accommodation, the clock starts on response, documentation and follow-through. A request that is mishandled at the first touchpoint can end the application process entirely, especially in hourly hiring where open roles move fast and managers may assume someone else is handling the accommodation. In this case, the result was not just a missed interview. It became a federal lawsuit and a settlement that now requires process changes inside the store.

Under the consent decree, Walmart in Decatur is barred from failing to provide reasonable accommodation to applicants in the future. It must keep a contact list of ASL interpreters posted in the store, and the people involved in hiring must be trained on how to accommodate deaf applicants and employees. The settlement also signals that the agency expects concrete fixes at the store level, not just a payment after the fact.

Acting EEOC General Counsel Catherine L. Eschbach said the outcome mattered because it helps keep the workforce accessible to people with disabilities. The EEOC’s Chicago District Office, which covers Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota, has been active on this issue before. In an earlier Walmart case involving deaf applicants, the company agreed to interpreter referral arrangements and other hiring-process changes, underscoring that this dispute fits a pattern the retailer has already seen.