Fox News Fined $1 Million for Sex Harassment and Retaliation
The New York City Commission on Human Rights has fined Fox News $1 million, the largest penalty in its history, for violations of laws protecting against sexual harassment and job retaliation.
As part of a settlement agreement announced Tuesday, Fox
also agreed to mandate anti-harassment training for its New York-based staff
and contributors and to temporarily drop a policy requiring people who allege
misconduct to enter into binding arbitration.
The penalty stems from an investigation that began in 2017
following several reports of what the commission called “rampant abuse” at the
popular news and opinion outlet.
The first indication of problems at the channel came in 2016
when former anchor Gretchen Carlson charged that now-deceased network chief
Roger Ailes had made unwanted advances and derailed her career when she
rejected him. Both Ailes and former Fox personality Bill O'Reilly lost their
jobs over misconduct allegations.
Several other women have come forward with lawsuits and
their own harassment allegations, including former Fox anchor Megyn Kelly.
The $1 million fine groups four separate “willful and
wanton” violations that each carried a maximum penalty of $250,000. The
commission would not identify the people involved in those cases, or whether
there were more.
Human rights officials said they hoped the large penalty
would deter bad behavior at any workplace.
“If people would dare to break the law and discriminate or
harass people, there will be stiff penalties they would have to pay,” said
Carmelyn Malalis, chairwoman of the city Commission on Human Rights.
Fox has characterized the cases as the product of a previous
regime and said the network has cleaned up its act under the leadership of
Suzanne Scott, current CEO of Fox News Media. Because the commission would not
say who it spoke to as part of its investigation, it could not be determined
whether any of the cases came after Scott took over in 2018.
“We are pleased to reach an amicable resolution of this
legacy matter,” Fox said in a statement. “Fox News Media has already been in
full compliance across the board, but cooperated with the New York City
Commission on Human Rights to continue enacting extensive preventive measures
against all forms of discrimination and harassment.”
The commission said that women who rejected advances were
retaliated against with fewer appearances on the air and bad work assignments
and had their text messages spied upon.
Fox News “ensured that those who have complained have no
future” working at the network, it said in its findings.
Besides the requirement for training, the commission said
Fox must maintain an anonymous hotline for employees to report harassment or
job retaliation. Fox's compliance will be monitored by outside inspectors four
times in each of the next two years.
Malalis said she hopes the provision requiring Fox not to insist
upon mandatory arbitration to settle disputes — forums that often benefit
employers and keep allegations secret — will be a model for similar settlements
in the future. That provision will be in place for four years.
“This is the essence of ‘me, too,’” she said. “We're putting
this out in the public so people, whether it is at Fox News or some other
corporation, can say ‘This is happening to me.’”
People with complaints will have their choice of where they
can have their accusations aired, she said. The settlement does not affect
confidentiality agreements, in which some employees leaving a company as a
result of others' misdeeds agree not to discuss the matter in exchange for
money.
Malalis said she could not speak to the working climate now
at Fox. Like lots of other corporations, many of its employees have been out of
the office due to the pandemic.
“I'm not in place there and can't see what their day-to-day
operations are,” she said. “It was the intention of this agreement to shape
what is going on at Fox now and certainly what will happen at Fox in the
future.”
Since 2017 the commission has filed 521 claims of
gender-based workplace harassment, assessing $4.5 million in damages and
penalties.
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