Bittersweet: Hershey Resorts Employee Files Suit Over Spa’s Trans-Inclusive Policies
Hershey’s recent branding choices and corporate policies have become a lightning rod for debate. A few years ago the company ran a trans-friendly “Her for She” campaign that stirred public backlash. Now an employee lawsuit has pushed the controversy from marketing into the workplace and the courts.
As Fox News reported at the time:
In the clip, Johnstone was shown posing with the limited-edition candy bar while providing a voiceover explaining the inclusivity initiative. The trans woman claimed, “My name is Fae Johnstone, I’m the executive director of ‘Wisdom to Action.’ We can create a world where everyone is able to live in public space as their honest and authentic selves.”
As the short ad ended, it depicted Johnstone posing and laughing alongside several biological women. The voiceover concluded with an invitation for viewers to view Hershey’s Canada’s International Women’s Day campaign on its website.
The company’s charitable ties to the Milton Hershey School Trust help explain why Hershey Resorts leans into progressive inclusion policies. Those same policies, critics say, can clash with women-only spaces and with employees who hold sincere religious beliefs. The dispute now centers on whether accommodating identity claims trumps religious liberty and safety concerns.
Jeriah Sellers, a Christian employee at the Melt Spa in Hershey, Pennsylvania, says she refused to escort a trans-identifying male “political figure” into the women’s locker room because she was uncomfortable doing so. After she raised the issue with her supervisor, Sellers alleges she was suspended without pay and reprimanded by the company’s HR team. The worker has since taken legal action to challenge how the spa treated her conscience-based objection.
Sellers has since filed a lawsuit against Hershey Resorts.
Here’s more from the Daily Wire:
The suit says that Jeriah Sellers, a devout Christian, was told to leave her faith at the door after she informed her supervisor that she was uncomfortable bringing a male into the female locker room at the Melt Spa by Hershey in Pennsylvania. As a result of her request not to be forced to bring males into female spaces, Sellers says that she was suspended without pay for a shift and slapped on the wrist by the company’s HR department.
“Hershey wants you to leave your personal, religious, and political beliefs at the door,” Sellers was told by a company HR representative, the lawsuit alleges. The suit accuses the spa of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits religious discrimination and requires employers to accommodate workers’ religious practices.
There is no reason why a man should be allowed in the women’s locker room at the Hershey spa, and there is no reason an employee who objects on conscience grounds should be forced to facilitate that. That clash between corporate DEI practices and religious conscience is exactly the legal battleground the suit seeks to test. The case raises familiar questions about where workplace accommodations end and compelled actions begin.
That’s exactly what they’re saying.
According to the Freedom Counsel, whose Counselor Andrea Shaw filed the lawsuit on behalf of Sellers, children as young as 13 use that locker room. That detail sharpens the safety argument for those who oppose mixed-sex access to designated female areas. The involvement of a legal advocacy group shows this is meant to be a test case for how far employer policy can go when it collides with employee belief.
This is a bad look for Hershey Resorts, both from a customer-relations angle and from the standpoint of employee morale. Conservative readers will see it as another example of corporate policy outrunning practical concerns about safety and religious freedom. The courts now get to weigh whether Hershey’s approach violated federal protections for religious practice.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
