The beleaugured cable network Fox News is now the subject of an investigation by the New York State Division of Human Rights regarding the numerous and very public sexual harassment complaints that have been plaguing the company for well over a year.
Think Progress reports that according to attorney Lisa Bloom, a spokesperson from the agency confirmed that they’re “investigating Fox News for claims of sexual harassment and retaliation.”
The agency has already spoken to two of Bloom’s clients and is requesting an interview with a third. Speaking to Think Progress, Bloom cited Fox News’s culture of repeated sexual harassment as the reason her firm requested the investigation in April, calling it “the worst corporate culture I’ve heard of in 30 years as a civil rights attorney.”
As many of the women signed confidentiality agreements or are otherwise unable to raise complaints of sexual harassment with the state agency themselves, Bloom’s law firm filed a complaint on their behalf.
The complaint filed to the NY SDHR presents, according to Bloom’s firm, a clear timeline of the decades of institutionalized harassment at Fox News, starting with Fox’s hiring of “predator” Roger Ailes and working its way through the various women who have gone public with their cases in the past year, starting with Gretchen Carlson filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes in July 2016. Carlson’s suit and the $20 million she ultimately got as a result of the settlement opened the door for other women at the cable news channel to come forward with suits of their own.
