Over her nearly 29 years at Walgreens, pharmacy tech Dinean Whitaker worked at five locations in New Haven. Evelyn Tate followed her to each one. When Tate had knee surgeries, Whitaker, also known as “Miss Dee,” brought the medicine to her car. She kept Tate apprised of when she was due for shots, and when she could use a coupon to save money. “It wasn’t just me,” said Tate. “It was everyone. She was just one of those people who went above and beyond to help you.”  So when Whitaker, 56, wasn’t at her customary spot behind the Walgreens pharmacy window on the corner of York Street and MLK Boulevard on the occasions that Tate came in to pick up prescriptions over the winter and into the spring, Tate wondered: Had Whitaker been assigned to another town?  Earlier this month, she learned what happened from a Facebook post by attorney Alex Taubes. Last November, the store manager and an asset-protection employee summoned Whitaker into an office. A $24 coupon had been used on her account, they told her; employees weren’t allowed to use those coupons. Whitaker said she’d never heard of that policy — she had used coupons throughout her tenure with the company — but offered to pay the $24 on the spot.  After paying at the photo counter, she told them she would accept a warning or a write-up. The manager said the company was treating it as lost money and had to let her go. Her last paycheck would be in the mail. She was officially fired on Nov. 21, 2025. In September, Taubes filed a claim with the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging that Whitaker was the victim of age, race, and color discrimination. He said that there are no hearings currently scheduled, and Walgreens has not yet filed a response. Walgreens Media Relations did not respond to a request for comment on the case. The manager at Walgreens on York Street said that the store had no comment.  “I left with dignity and my head held high,” Whitaker told the Independent. “I knew I did nothing wrong.” She prided herself on her dedication to customers, she said. There was the difficult individual she was asked to deal with. “I redirected him,” she said. “From then on, he always came to me and he didn’t give us any more problems.” There was the young woman who came in looking pained. “I knew she was going through something, I felt it, and I talked with her, and gave her a hug.”  She worked through cancer treatments; took home awards and certificates recognizing her hard work and service; had customers, many of them older, following her to each location.  “When we came in, she’d greet us with, ‘Here’s my favorite couple,’” said one long-time customer. “She made sure we got everything and nothing went wrong. We told her she was our adopted daughter.”  Following the termination, Whitaker said she was initially at peace. “I’m not a person to bash anybody, or let anger into my heart,” she said. “It was always more about me enjoying helping people, giving them comfort, trying to be the bright spot in their day.”  That changed when Walgreens contested her unemployment claim, leaving her without benefits for five months. “Then it became personal because you’re trying to stop me from feeding my family,” said Whitaker, who has two daughters and a son, as well as eight grandchildren. Until her successful appeal this April, she got by, she said, “by the grace of God.” At that appeal hearing, Walgreens submitted a 28-page write-up about a supposed incident in 2022. “It was something they never disciplined me for and didn’t mentioned when they fired me,” she said, adding she had no idea what it was. (Taubes and Dinean said they do not have a copy of that 28-page write-up, and the Independent was not able to obtain a copy by the publication time of this article.) One reason for that seeming disconnect, according to her attorney Alex Taubes, is that there are larger forces at play.  In August 2025, three months before Whitaker’s termination, the private equity firm Sycamore Partners acquired Walgreens for $10 billion, prompting significant workforce reductions and closures of underperforming stores.  After the buyout, Whitaker was told the new owners were prioritizing immunizations, which provide significantly higher profit margins than filling prescriptions and, in general, customer service. On its face, that might have made her a liability. Shortly before her termination, though, she rallied her pharmacy team to two gift cards in a store competition for immunizations.  For Taubes, Whitaker’s case is about “the lack of protections for workers in the economy, especially if they have no union,” he said. “It’s not necessarily illegal to fire an employee who’s been there for almost 29 years over $24 unless you can prove illegal discrimination, and in this case it’s a long-tenured, older Black employee.”  Newhallville Alder Troy Streater, Whitaker’s cousin, who connected her with Taubes, registered his shock on learning of the termination. “I’ve known her basically all her life as a woman who’s faithful to her job and faithful to her responsibilities,” he said. “I would hope they reconsider and do the correct thing.”  For Whitaker, there’s no going back. “I gave Walgreens almost 29 years of my life and it was God’s plan that I move on,” she said. She’s now working at an organization that supports people with disabilities and that, as she put it, allows her “to still get to share the gift of love and comfort with people.” “I’m a little out of my comfort zone speaking out like this, but I just don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” she said. Dinean Whitaker today. Credit Lisa Reisman photo The Walgreens at York and MLK. Some of Whitaker’s recognitions over the years from Walgreens. The post $24-Coupon Firing Prompts Discrimination Complaint appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less