The Mirror

Time Warner Shakes Discrimination Lawsuit

Photo by John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images

Font Size:

A lawsuit claiming racial discrimination at Time Warner television network’s CNN and TBS was dismissed Tuesday for a lack of factual evidence.

U.S. District Court Judge William Duffey Jr. denounced the lawsuit as “fraught with conclusory claims, unsupported by factual allegations sufficient to support the inferences claimed by Plaintiffs,” and “littered with conclusory assertions, rank speculation, confusing statements, and generalized allegations,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The lead plaintiffs of the case were former CNN employee Celeslie Henley and former TBS employee Ernest Colbert Jr. Racking a total 27 years under Time Warner, Henley and Colbert were just two of about 175 current and former employees who requested to join the class action lawsuit, the New York Business Journal reported.

Henley and Colbert railed Time Warner with allegations of mistreatment toward African-American employees, including lower performance ratings, wage discrepancies and unequal promotion opportunities. In an official claim the pair wrote that they had been subjected to racial slurs in the office such as “It’s hard to manage black people” and “Who would be worth more: black slaves from times past, or new slaves?”

The lawsuit came on the heels of similar allegations of racial discrimination against counterparts Fox News and NYT.

Sarah Glover, the president of the National Association of Black Journalists, responded to the allegations in a statement on the association’s website that read: “No one working in the media industry today should be subjected to discriminatory practices. This has to end.”

Despite such loud claims, Duffey waved the lawsuit as poorly constructed with the only numerical evidence offered, hiring and advancements statistics, related to those of color, not African-Americans alone.

Duffey’s ruling serves as some desperately needed good publicity for CNN who has been President Trump’s main enemy in his battle with the media.

Molly Alkon