Jessica Golloher, a radio correspondent for Fox News Radio Network, claims in a new lawsuit that Fox used their new harassment hotline “to paint targets on the backs of employees,” Reuters reports. Golloher’s lawsuit claims she was laid off in retaliation for reporting sex discrimination.
Golloher claims in her suit that she reported gender discrimination last month to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, the law firm Fox retained after being blasted with sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits. The day after she reported this discrimination, the suit claims, she was told “without prior warning” that she would be laid off due to “budgetary concerns.”
The suit alleges a variety of sexist treatment from colleagues, and claims that Fox News Radio Vice President Mitch Davis, who the suit says carried out her termination and is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, asked her to send him recent pictures of herself while she was reporting; according to the suit, “Davis called Ms. Golloher to complain that the photos were ‘horrible,’ and that she was ‘much better looking in person.’” Among other claims, the lawsuit alleges that a story Golloher pitched that would take place in Afghanistan was dismissed as being “exceedingly unsafe,” but that Fox then sent a male reporter to write the same story.
Davis, the lawsuit notes, was fired from ABC in 1995 for transmitting a sexually explicit photograph over the company computer network.
In a statement to LawNewz, 21st Century Fox disputed Golloher’s claims: “Jessica Golloher’s claims are without merit. Her allegations of discrimination and retaliation are baseless. We will vigorously defend the matter.”