Fox News is facing a racial discrimination lawsuit by a pair of Black women who worked in administrative positions at the network. Tichaona Brown and Tabrese Wright worked in the New York offices of Fox and claim that a supervisor frequently made racist remarks in their presence.
The New York Times reports that Brown, a payroll manager, and Wright, a payroll coordinator, witnessed Fox News’ comptroller Judith Slather who the women said enacted a “top-down racial harassment” stance against them and Black people in general. Fox, already battling claims of sexual harassment from its former chairman, Roger Ailes, the network now has to contend with what could become another high-profile matter.
The Times reports:
The women — Tichaona Brown, a payroll manager, and Tabrese Wright, a payroll coordinator — accused Ms. Slater of making numerous racially charged comments, including suggestions that black men were “women beaters” and that black people wanted to physically harm white people.
They also said that Ms. Slater claimed that black employees mispronounced words, such as “mother,” “father,” “month” and “ask,” and that she urged Ms. Brown to say those words aloud in a meeting. Ms. Wright said Ms. Slater once asked if her three children were all “fathered by the same man.”
“We are confident that the good men and women of the Bronx will hold Fox accountable for what we believe to be its abhorrent racist conduct, reminiscent of the Jim Crow era,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Douglas H. Wigdor and Jeanne Christensen of the Wigdor law firm, said in a statement. The firm also represents two employees of The New York Times in a pending federal lawsuit against The Times, alleging age, race and gender discrimination.
Brown and Wright are also suing Fox’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, for not addressing Slater’s alleged comments. Wright, who still works at Fox, was demoted to a lower position according to their suit and Brown was fired on Monday.
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