Chris Isidore
WASHINGTON — (CNN) An Iraq war veteran claims she was fired by Trump University because she needed two days a month off in order to serve in the Army Reserve.
Corrine Sommers, who worked for Trump University for five months, sued Trump University after she was dismissed in October 2007. She reached a confidential settlement in that case. But she later alleged that she was fired because of her military service in a November 2012 deposition she gave in a federal class action suit that accused the school of fraud. That deposition was unsealed this week.
Sommers alleged that a supervisor at the school “complained when I would have to take days off to do my military service.” And she said that as part of a poor performance review she received, “they wrote it was an issue that I was in the military.” She needed to serve two days a month while she worked at Trump University, she testified. She said she was fired when returning from a vacation that she had refused to cut short to respond to a call asking her to come into work.
She said she was also referred to by supervisors as a “weekend warrior,” which she testified she believed was a criticism.
“It’s a derogatory term when it comes from someone else, especially when I’m an Iraqi veteran,” she testified.
Employers are prohibited by federal law from discriminating against members of the military reserves for the time they spend in the service.
Trump has made his support for members of the military a centerpiece of his campaign. He has also criticized the various lawsuits against Trump University, saying he is refusing to settle them because he is confident he will eventually win the case.
“I could have settled this case many times, but I don’t want to settle cases when we are right. I don’t believe in it,” Trump told a rally Friday when talking about the lawsuit.
Lawyers and a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, the business that ran Trump University until it closed in 2011, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Sommers’ claim, or about the company’s settlement with her.
In another court filing, Trump’s attorneys argued that Sommers retracted her testimony. However the filing in which they made that claim did not have details of what testimony was retracted.
The-CNN-Wire ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. (Photo: CNN)
