Fox sued!

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission files a sexual discrimination suit against the cable news giant.

Published November 8, 2005 6:50PM (EST)

On Tuesday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit in federal district court in Manhattan against the Fox News network, claiming that the cable channel has discriminated against female employees.

Many of the suit's charges center on Fox vice president Joe Chillemi, who is accused of using "gross obscenities and vulgarities when describing women or their body parts," cursing at and denigrating women at work, proclaiming that "of course" he'd pick a man over a woman for a given position because the woman might get pregnant and leave her job, and telling female employees to "be a man."

The suit also charges that Fox stuck women with freelance and other less secure jobs and that the network created a "hostile work environment" for them "because of their sex." The suit is the result of an investigation in response to claims made by former Fox employee Kim Weiler.

Lawyer Steven Mintz, who is representing Fox in the suit, told the New York Times that the network "questions the motivations behind" Weiler's charges.

Broadsheet is just hoping that this suit will at no point involve the words "loofah" or "falafel."


By Rebecca Traister

Rebecca Traister writes for Salon. She is the author of "Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women" (Free Press). Follow @rtraister on Twitter.

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