Silke Jasso
There is more to Fox News’ Bob Beckel’s firing than initially disclosed.
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The initial report states that Beckel was fired for making an “insensitive remark to an African-American employee.” But the attorneys — Douglas H. Wigdor and Jeanne Christensen — representing both the employee in question and several other employees who also have open cases of racial discrimination against the network are upset that Fox News did not explain more of the story.
LawNewz shared a statement from the attorneys:
Mr. Beckel stormed out of his office when our client, a Black [sic] IT employee came to service his computer, telling our client that he was leaving his office because he is Black.
The lawsuit also alleges that Kevin Lord, the human resources officer for Fox News, attempted to threaten the employee in order to convince him to withdraw the complaint. It was reported that someone who is familiar with the incident reported both “The Five” co-host and his comment to Fox News’ human resource department.
The following statement from a Fox News spokesperson was sent to Rare in direct response to the allegation:
As Mr. Wigdor knows, Fox News made the decision to terminate Mr. Beckel after a prompt and thorough investigation. His client raised the complaint to Kevin Lord, EVP Human Resources, on Tuesday evening via email and within 7 minutes Mr. Lord responded and began the investigation. Today, Fox News delivered that message to Mr. Beckel and facilitated an apology from Mr. Beckel to the employee minutes after he was terminated. No one tried to persuade Mr. Wigdor’s client to withdraw his complaint.
This is not the first time accusations of racism have affected the network.
Following the departures of former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who passed away earlier this week, the network was said to have scheduled a diversity training for all of its employees and remote staff.
