Lawsuit Claims Plantation-Style Management At Fox

Fox News Network is being sued by a dozen black employees, some current and some former, who are charging the company with allowing years of racial discrimination and creating an abusive work environmen, according to USAToday.

And a thirteenth employee has filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, says the workers' attorney Douglas Wigdor.

The latest alleged victims were added to a lawsuit originally filed March 28 in the Bronx Supreme Court in New York. The original plaintiffs, Tichaona Brown and Tabrese Wright, alleged they and “other dark-skinned employees suffered years-long racial animus” from Judith Slater, a former senior vice president and company controller. Another person, Monica Douglas, joined that case when an amended suit was filed April 4.

Kelly Wright

Among the latest employees in the case are two-time Emmy Award winning and former co-host of Fox and Friends Kelly Wright, who has been at Fox for 15 years. "Despite his outstanding performance, and because he is Black, Mr. Wright has been effectively sidelined and asked to perform the role of a 'Jim Crow' – the racist caricature of a Black entertainer," according to the suit.

Fox last week dismissed network star and Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and it fired Slater, a defendant in this suit, on Feb. 28. And the suit makes mention of Fox's statement to its employees after the O'Reilly firing that the company wants "to underscore our consistent commitment to fostering a work environment built on the values of trust and respect.”

But the plaintiffs argue that "sadly, nothing could be further from the truth," their suit charges. "Indeed, the only consistency at Fox is the abhorrent, intolerable, unlawful and hostile racial discrimination that was inflicted on minority employees that appears more akin to Plantation-style management than a modern-day work environment."

Fox News and Dianne Brandi, Fox News' executive vice president of business and legal affairs, who is also a defendant in the suits, said that the company "vehemently deny the race discrimination claims in both lawsuits . . .  They are copycat complaints of the original one filed last month. We will vigorously defend these cases.”