Kroger Defeats White Male Worker’s Appeal, but Bias Test Blasted

A White male former Kroger’s store manager fell short in his bid to revive claims that race and sex discrimination caused his firing.

Matthew Smyer lacked evidence of a non-White employee who was treated more favorably under similar circumstances and that the performance-based reasons for his termination were pretextual, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said Friday. And he failed to raise questions warranting trial on his sex discrimination claim, because he didn’t present evidence that any of the allegedly less-experienced female employees promoted to store manager around the time he was fired was similarly situated to ...