Office Depot fires Michigan employee who refused to print poster for Charlie Kirk vigil after backlash

Office Depot has apologized and fired an employee at a location in Michigan after a video surfaced of the worker refusing to print a poster for a vigil honoring Charlie Kirk, who was murdered earlier this week at Utah Valley University.

The video, which went viral on social media, showed a customer telling employees they had come to the store earlier that day to print a poster promoting the vigil. A female employee responded, "Yeah, so, we don't print propaganda,” and reiterated, "It's propaganda. I'm sorry. We don't print that here."

When the person filming the video asked why the poster would be considered propaganda, the employee replied, “Because he's a political figure and I don't have to…” before another employee cut her off.

The company faced backlash after the video spread online. In a statement released Friday, Office Depot said it launched an “immediate internal review” and confirmed that the employee is “no longer with the organization.” The company also said it reached out to the customer "to address their concerns and seek to fulfill their order to their satisfaction."

“We are deeply concerned by the incident that occurred at Store 3382 in Portage, Michigan. The behavior displayed by our associate is completely unacceptable and insensitive, violates our company policies, and does not reflect the values we uphold at Office Depot,” the company said. “We sincerely apologize to the customer affected and to our community for this regrettable situation.”

The statement continued, “Upon learning of the incident, we immediately reached out to the customer to address their concerns and seek to fulfill their order to their satisfaction. We have also launched an immediate internal review and, as a result, the associate involved is no longer with the organization. We are committed to reinforcing training with all team members to ensure our standards of respect, integrity, and customer service are upheld at every location. Our customers and communities deserve nothing less.”