Fox News now has a racial discrimination lawsuit on its hands
Lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit.
Fox now finds itself on the defense against allegations of racial discrimination just as several sexual harassment lawsuits ousted some of the network's most prominent executives and personalities.
Nearly a dozen current and former employees at the channel filed a class-action lawsuit against Fox on Tuesday. The lawsuit alleges “abhorrent, intolerable, unlawful and hostile racial discrimination," and singles out former comptroller Judith Slater as a specific instigator of racially discriminatory behavior.
Fox fired Slater in February, but by then she had allegedly committed enough racially discriminatory behavior to be singled out. She staged arm-wrestling competitions between minority employees and white women supervisors because she thought it'd be fun to watch, derided the way black employees spoke, implied the idea that black men beat women, taunted black employees when President Donald Trump imposed a travel ban on certain African and Middle Eastern nations, and had no problem dredging up stereotypes about people with Indian ancestry, Mexicans, and men from China, according to the legal filings.
Fox news employees tried to talk with human resources about Slater but allege they got turned back after being told Slater had way too much dirt on top executives for anyone to take her down.
Slater was also named in two other recent legal actions alleging racial discrimination against the network. One person associated with the network filed a discrimination charge under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and a former employee is the plaintiff in a different lawsuit alleging discrimination, filed in a separate New York court.
In an emailed statement, a Fox News spokesperson said the network "vehemently" denies claims of racial discrimination alleged in the lawsuits.
Unlike recent lawsuits that alleged sexual harassment, the most predominant alleged offender in the racial discrimination legal complaints/lawsuits has already been fired. Whether current executives are forced out due to these lawsuits remains to be seen.
Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
