Last month, two black employees filed a lawsuit against Fox News alleging that a pattern of racial discrimination in the workplace was ignored by company executives. Seven additional employees joined the lawsuit this week, adding an allegation that former Fox News comptroller Judy Slater forced them to participate in a racist wrestling fantasy.
Another employee, Saturday news anchor Kelly Wright, has joined the lawsuit alleging that Fox co-president Bill Shine ignored his reports of racist comments made by former host Bill O'Reilly.
This latest claim against Fox News also includes an amazing anecdote about former network chief Roger Ailes and another employee.
Today’s court filing also includes new allegations of racism against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes. A former payroll employee named Musfiq Rahman claims that Ailes became “furious” when Rahman mistakenly walked into his office while looking for a colleague on the hall sometime in 2014. The suit suggests that Ailes believed Raham, who is from Bangladesh, was a terrorist because he was dark-skinned (Ailes reportedly believed he was targeted by Al Qaeda for assassination). The suit says, “Ailes ordered that a wall be constructed immediately in his personal office to act as a barrier to entry.” (Last year, Vanity Fair’s Sarah Ellison first reported on the existence of Ailes’s security door, and quoted sources speculating it was to hide Ailes’s sexual harassment.)
Who among us hasn't completely lost their shit because a person of color who works for the company accidentally entered the wrong office?
I wasn't sure what to file this under. It's amazingly racist, but it's also a paranoid fantasy. But I guess I'm repeating myself.
There are rumors that even more employees will soon join or file more lawsuits against Fox.