GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The former Founders Brewing manager who filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the company said Sunday that "we have to see color."
Tracy Evans filed the lawsuit in 2018 which named him as the only minority manager at Founders, and in court documents, Evans said his coworkers used racial slurs around him and with other employees.
"We have to see each other for those differences, and it's the reason there's a lot of uproar," Evans said. "It's the reason people are really understanding that this is a very systemic problem."
Evans said he was let go from the brewery after he tried to take a personal day to speak to Human Resources in Grand Rapids.
►The full deposition transcript can be found here.
On Wednesday, Founders dropped out of the Michigan Brewers Guilds' Detroit Fall Beer Festival. Eastern Market Brewing Company announced it would not be attending the festival because "[they] do not believe Founders deserves to be present."
On Friday, Founders announced they were closing their Detroit taproom until further notice due to the controversy. The brewing company said the close was also out of concern for employees' safety.
On Friday night, Founders Brewing diversity and inclusion director Graci Harkema announced her resignation from the company on social media. In an interview with 13 ON YOUR SIDE, she said the company completely ignored her input regarding the lawsuit.
"My voice wasn't heard," she said. "I couldn't stand for a company that didn't represent integrity and didn't represent the ability to talk about the hard issues... about why I was brought in the role to begin with."
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