White Pine Senior Living, an assisted living facility in Minnesota, has agreed to pay $73,000 and provide other equitable relief to settle a pregnancy discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced. According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, White Pine Senior Living awarded a promotion to a female employee, but once the manager learned of the employee’s pregnancy, the manager threatened to demote her and launched a campaign of excessive and heightened scrutiny of her work. The employee opposed the discrimination and filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC, causing the manager to retaliate through negative performance reviews that threatened employment-related harm. White Pine Senior Living finally forced the employee to quit by insisting that it must hire a replacement for her because it assumed the pregnant employee would not be reliable. Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, including pregnancy.