Setback for Ousted White CBS Anchorwoman as CBS, Paramount Argue Her Discrimination Claims Are Not ‘Plausible’

Lawyers for a CBS-owned Boston TV station are insisting that a white former anchorwoman has provided no evidence to show that she was discriminated against and forced out of a job she loved because she is a woman. But they say she may have evidence that she was discriminated against because she is white. In August, a white former news anchor at CBS-owned Boston station WBZ, Katherine Merrill, sued the station, CBS, and it’s parent company, Paramount, for $4 million, alleging that she was wrongfully accused of “microaggressions” and “implicit bias,” and that she was discriminated against because she is white. Ms. Merrill alleges that WBZ-TV adopted aggressive diversity policies at the direction of CBS and “exploited such policies and took career-ending action” against her to “advance a DEI agenda.” She says she was forced into a “constructive discharge resignation,” meaning she was coerced into resigning in what effectively was a firing.Last year, Paramount, under pressure from the Trump Administration, said it was scaling back its DEI policies. And Skydance Media, which acquired Paramount in July, vowed to eliminate diversity initiatives. Paramount, and CBS in particular, had implemented some of the most aggressive DEI policies in the media business, with the imposition of strict hiring quotas on show teams and more than a hundred million dollars committed to pay black producers for shows.Kate Merrill was accused of suggesting co-worker Courtney Cole (R) that she would be better suited to work in Nashville. WBZNow, having ended most of its DEI initiatives, Paramount is facing several lawsuits over its past practices, alleging that it illegally discriminated against white employees and putting the company in the awkward position of defending its prior conduct as legal even after it reversed course. In April, CBS settled with a white male writer for “SEAL Team” who’d filed a discrimination lawsuit. His lawsuit was funded by America First Legal, a group founded during the interregnum by President Trump’s powerful advisor, Stephen Miller.But CBS’s station group apparently does not want to settle with Ms. Merrill. Lawyers for WBZ, CBS, and Paramount have sought to get the majority of Ms. Merrill’s lawsuit — including her claims of sex-based discrimination and defamation— tossed out, arguing that she has provided no evidence for her claims. The move seems to signal that they have little interest in settling the case at this point. In a filing Tuesday, attorneys for the defendants argue that Ms. Merrill’s allegation that she was discriminated against because she is a woman lacks evidence.Ms. Merrill has claimed that she faced sex-based discrimination by noting that the network demoted her after an investigation into allegations of racist conduct. Her attorneys say that male colleagues who allegedly made “sexually-charged comment[s]” were not investigated. They also state that the station never announced a demotion for a male employee, as it did with Ms. Merrill. Kate Merrill was accused of committing a microagression for correcting weatherman Jason Mikell’s pronunciation of ‘Concord.’ WBZAttorneys for CBS say that those allegations only provide evidence for her race-based discrimination claim, but do not show that she received disparate treatment because she is a woman. “Indeed, she alleges that women of color benefitted from the same purported racial favoritism over white men— allegations she does not even address in her opposition and that directly refute any plausible claim of sex discrimination,” the filing says. “Nor does Merrill identify a single white male comparator who was treated more favorably than she was. All male individuals she identifies are people of color— three Black men and one Asian man—further undermining the plausibility of any inference that sex, rather than race, motivated the challenged conduct.”The filing argues, “Even accepting Merrill’s allegations regarding the investigation and her discipline as true, she does not plausibly allege how any purported irregularities were linked to sex bias, as opposed to the race-based dynamics she repeatedly emphasizes throughout the rest of the Complaint.”The filing does not concede that WBZ discriminated against her because she is white. But, interestingly, the defendants have not sought to have that complaint dismissed. And the latest filing from the defendants insists that racial-discrimination is the only discrimination allegation she can plausibly argue in court. Attorneys for the defendants also insist that Ms. Merrill’s argument that she was defamed is flimsy. Her attorneys say that the investigation into her alleged racist conduct was known by WBZ staff and that the timing of her demotion signaled that she was being disciplined for racism.“[Ms. Merrill’s] defamation theory rests entirely on timing—namely, that her demotion followed an internal investigation,” the filing says.While the attorneys noted that courts have found “conduct” can “constitute a defamatory” statement, they said that in the cases cited by Ms. Merrill’s attorneys, “involved additional statements or conduct communicating wrongdoing beyond the mere announcement of the employment action itself.” They said no WBZ executives said Ms. Merrill was demoted for racism. Kate Merrill at the WBZ anchor desk. WBZThey also disagreed with her claim that her employer acted with “malice,” the high bar required for defamation cases involving public figures. The filing notes that Ms. Merrill argues that the CBS “allegedly pursued amounted to unlawful disparate treatment.” However, it cited a statement from the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, which stated that DEI initiatives on their own do not constitute discrimination. Ms. Merrill asked the court not to dismiss her claims. But if it does, she asked that it not dismiss them with prejudice to give her a chance to amend her complaint with what she says is more evidence to support her allegations. Paramount is facing two other ongoing lawsuits alleging that white employees were discriminated against. In July 2024, a former anchor at the CBS-owned Los Angeles local station, KCAL, Jeff Vaughn, sued, alleging he was “fired because he is an older, white, heterosexual, male. And in October, a white former Paramount executive, Joseph Jerome, sued, alleging he was subjected to age and race discrimination due to the company’s “DEI goals” when he was fired last year.

Setback for Ousted White CBS Anchorwoman as CBS, Paramount Argue Her Discrimination Claims Are Not ‘Plausible’

Setback for Ousted White CBS Anchorwoman as CBS, Paramount Argue Her Discrimination Claims Are Not ‘Plausible’

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