Every day, employees at Aurora Pro Services, a North Carolina home-repair company, would gather for a mandatory prayer meeting, according to a federal complaint. They stood in a circle while leaders, including the company owner, allegedly read Bible scriptures and prayed. In the circle, the owner required Aurora’s employees to recite the Lord’s Prayer in unison and requested prayers for poorly performing employees, the complaint alleged. The meetings became “cult-like,” Mackenzie Saunders, a former Aurora employee, alleged in the complaint, filed in June 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Saunders, who is agnostic, attended the meetings after she was hired in November 2020 but stopped going in January 2021. John McGaha, another former employee, said the prayer meetings were about 10 minutes long when he started in the summer of 2020 and stretched to 45 minutes a few months later. When McGaha, an atheist, asked to be excluded from portions of the meetings, he was rebuked by Aurora’s owner, who said it would be in his “best interest” to attend, the complaint states. Days later, the company allegedly halved McGaha’s pay. When McGaha asked to skip the meetings a second time, he was allegedly told that he did not have to believe in God but that he had to participate in the prayer meetings.

Aurora fired McGaha and Saunders in 2020 and 2021, respectively, after they objected to the prayer meetings — a move that will cost the company $50,000, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced last week. The company has agreed to pay McGaha $37,500 and Saunders $12,500 to settle the religious discrimination and retaliation lawsuit, which the agency said violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The commission said it attempted to reach a pre-litigation settlement before launching the lawsuit.

Aurora and attorneys for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday evening. In an October court filing responding to allegations from McGaha, Aurora’s attorneys denied that the prayer meetings were mandatory, that they singled out poorly performing employees and that McGaha was terminated for refusing to participate in the prayers. McGaha objected to the meetings in a “disruptive” and “uncordial” manner on his last day of employment, according to Aurora’s response.

McGaha, a former construction manager for Aurora, joined the company in June 2020 and initially attended the company’s prayer meetings, which also briefly addressed business matters, according to the complaint. He grew uncomfortable as the meetings got longer and when, in one instance, he was allegedly asked to lead a prayer and declined.

Aurora’s owner, who is not named in the complaint, twice denied McGaha’s requests to be excused from portions of the meetings that involved prayer, according to the complaint.

“If you do not participate, that is okay, you don’t have to work here,” Aurora’s owner allegedly told McGaha in front of other employees. “You are getting paid to be here.” McGaha was fired in September 2020, six days after his second request to skip the meetings, according to the complaint.

Aurora was still holding the meetings that November when Saunders joined as a customer service representative, the complaint states.

While Saunders worked for Aurora, the owner allegedly took attendance at the prayer meetings and reprimanded employees for not attending. Saunders stopped attending the meetings in January 2021 and was terminated several weeks later because she was “not a good fit” for the company, the complaint states.

As part of the settlement, Aurora will train all of its employees, including its owner, on anti-discrimination and religious accommodation policies, the commission said.

“Federal law protects employees from having to choose between their sincerely held religious beliefs and their jobs,” said Melinda C. Dugas, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Charlotte District Office. “Employers who sponsor prayer meetings in the workplace have a legal obligation to accommodate employees whose personal religious beliefs conflict with the company’s practice.”