An Iraq War veteran says she was fired by Trump University because of her commitments required by her service as a reservist, according to testimony released in the California civil suit against the program.
Under terms of a court settlement, Corinne Sommer was not allowed to discuss the case, but her deposition was released along with other documents this week,
The Huffington Post reports.
"I was fired because I was in the military," she said in the deposition, which was given to lawyers in the fraud case against Trump University. Sommer herself is not part of that suit in which former students say they paid large amounts of money for information on how to learn Donald Trump's secrets to real estate.
"At the end of my [performance] evaluation, they wrote that it was a problem that I was in the military," wrote Sommer. She said she took her two days a month of duty in the middle of the week to free her time on the weekends as an event planner for Trump University.
Still, she said, her supervisors wrote on her performance she was a "weekend warrior," which she saw as "derogatory" since she had served in combat in Iraq.
Sommer was fired in 2007 for what the company said was poor performance, but Sommer said they had actually asked her to work more hours shortly before the firing, and she refused.
Trump University also fired another veteran about the same time, according to The Huffington Post.
Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Richard Wright lost his position as a mentor at the Trump Institute, which was an affiliate of Trump University, after returning from deployment to Afghanistan.
Wright said his bosses told him "all of your absences" had forced them to "reevaluate your position with the Trump Institute."
Trump has been under fire from the media in recent weeks
over his commitment to donate money to veterans groups raised during a January event. An angry Trump fired back at the media on Tuesday for questioning his actions, saying he had to take time to vet some of the organizations to ensure the money was truly going to help veterans.
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