Oregon county pays $100,000 to employee who sued over Blue Lives Matter office flag

• Multnomah County in Oregon has agreed to pay $100,000 to a black employee who filed a lawsuit against the county claiming that a co-worker demeaned the Black Lives Matter movement by pinning up a Blue Lives Matter flag in the office.
• Proponents of Blue Lives Matter say it's meant to support and honor the work and sacrifices of law enforcement officers.
• The lawsuit, filed by Karimah Guion-Pledgure, said the Blue Lives Matter movement "co-opts" the Black Lives Matter movement and "repurposes it to shift focus to law enforcement — a chosen profession, not a racial identity — and thus denigrates, dilutes, and demeans the purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement."
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon county has agreed to pay $100,000 to a black employee who sued after a co-worker pinned up a Blue Lives Matter flag in the office.

Karimah Guion-Pledgure alleged in her January lawsuit against Multnomah County that the flag demeans the Black Lives Matter movement and that after she and other black co-workers complained, she was harassed by others in the office, The Oregonian/OregonLive Saturday.

The settlement, reached Thursday, was first reported by Portland's alternative bi-weekly newspaper, The Portland Mercury.

Black Lives Matter is an activist movement formed in 2013 that campaigns against violence and systemic racism toward black people.

Proponents of Blue Lives Matter say it's meant to support and honor the work and sacrifices of law enforcement officers. The Blue Lives Matter flag is a black-and-white American flag with a blue stripe replacing one white stripe in the middle. Thin Blue Line USA, which sells the flags, says the "thin blue line" represents offices in the line of duty and the black represents fallen officers.

Guion-Pledgure's lawsuit said the Blue Lives Matter movement "co-opts" the Black Lives Matter movement and "repurposes it to shift focus to law enforcement — a chosen profession, not a racial identity — and thus denigrates, dilutes, and demeans the purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement."

About a month before the probation officer put up the Blue Lives Matter flag in 2017, white supremacist demonstrators displayed that same flag alongside Confederate flags during a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the lawsuit notes.

One person died and dozens of others were injured when a man deliberately rammed his car into the crowd of counter-protesters. Members of Blue Lives Matter condemned the use of their flag at the rally.

Guion-Pledgure alleged that her supervisor in the Department of Community Justice didn't require the flag to be taken down and the conflict caused her extreme stress and health issues.

After the probation officer's flag had been on the wall for more than six months, Guion-Pledgure erected an "equity wall" that displayed photos of minorities killed by police, the suit stated.

Managers told her to take down the photos, the lawsuit says, but she refused because the Blue Lives Matter flag remained.

That same day, Guion-Pledgure found two sticky notes affixed to her equity wall reading "Thanks a lot" and "Bitch," according to the lawsuit.

A week later, managers responded with a new rule that all personal photos displayed needed to be smaller than 5-by-7 inches (13-by-18 centimeters), according to the suit.

Managers are now developing a countywide policy on personal displays of photos and other items in response to the lawsuit, said Multnomah County spokeswoman Jessica Morkert-Shibley.

As part of the agreement, Guion-Pledgure had to resign by Friday but can reapply for a county job.

"She's disappointed that she has to leave there and that they couldn't make it a safe and welcoming work environment," said her attorney, Ashlee Albies. "They say they're working on that, and we hope they really are."

Guion-Pledgure had worked for the department since 2011 as a corrections technician.

She originally sought $420,000 in the lawsuit.

• Read more:
• Likely 2020 presidential contender Pete Buttigieg explains why he once said 'all lives matter'
• After the white cop who was accused of fatally shooting Antwon Rose was let off the hook, his family promised to challenge the ruling
• Emails show NYPD went undercover to Black Lives Matter protests and kept photos of activists for years

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