HILLSDALE, Mich. — A Bob Evans employee in Michigan is out of work after he declined to remove a large Confederate flag from his pickup truck in the parking lot.

Wesley Rogers tells the Hillsdale Daily News (http://bit.ly/1NqFkvW ) that he has the right to express himself. But Angela Payne, a spokeswoman at Bob Evans, says the flag is “offensive to many of our customers and employees.”

Payne tells The Associated Press that Rogers resigned from a sausage plant in Hillsdale, 70 miles south of Lansing, after refusing to remove the flag or park elsewhere. He says he was fired.

Rogers says the Confederate flag is important to him as a native of the South. Critics say the flag is a symbol of racial segregation.

Bob Evans is based in New Albany, Ohio.

First Published October 8, 2015, 10:36 p.m.