EEOC Sues Fox News, Alleging It Retaliated Against Reporter's Age Bias Charge
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission yesterday filed a complaint against Fox News on behalf of a national correspondent who maintains that she was retaliated against by the company after complaining of gender and age discrimination.
According to a press release from the EEOC, Catherine Herridge, 46, made several complaints to Fox News management about employment practices she saw as discriminatory. Fox News investigated her allegations in 2007, according to the EEOC, and found no evidence of age or sex discrimination.
In 2008 the company offered a renewed contact to Herridge, which included language about her complaints and intended for her to stop making them, according to the EEOC. Herridge refused to sign the document unless the language was removed, at which point Fox stopped negotiating her contract, the EEOC maintains. Herridge then became an at-will employee, which the EEOC holds caused her considerable stress.
After Herridge filed her discrimination charge with the EEOC and an agency investigator conducted an on-site visit, Fox News offered her a new contract without the language in question, according to the EEOC, and she signed the document in June 2009. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks compensatory and punitive damages for Herridge, and an injunction enjoining Fox News from engaging in further retaliation against employees based on employment policy objections. The case is EEOC v. Fox News Network.
Lynette Barnes, an EEOC lawyer, told United Press International that the agency tried to reach an “informal resolution” before the complaint was filed.
The article also notes a statement Fox News released about the EEOC complaint.
“We’re not going to respond to a suspiciously timed press release from the EEOC,” the document states.
