Tuesday, November 08, 2005

The Fox Sex Discrimination Case



Fox has one of those. Couldn't happen to a better company. Fox's defence is that

The lewd language of Fox News Channel vice president Joe Chillemi -- however tasteless -- doesn't constitute sexual harassment or discrimination, says a lawyer for the network. A discrimination suit against the network filed Monday by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accuses Chillemi of routinely using gross obscenities and vulgarities when describing women or their body parts.

This is from the actual discrimination suit:

. Defendant Fox, including through its Vice President Joe Chillemi ("Chillemi"),
sexually harassed and subjected Weiler and a class of similarly situated female
employees to a hostile work environment because of their sex. Chillemi routinely
used gross obscenities and vulgarities when describing women or their body parts
(referring, for example, to women's breasts as "tits" and declaring that something
was "as useless as tits on a bull"). He routinely used obscenities and vulgarities
with women employees that he did not use with male employees (such as telling
women that they had put his "cock" or "dick" "on the chopping block"). Chillemi
routinely cursed at and otherwise denigrated women employees and treated them
in a demeaning way (including telling women not to be a "pussy" but to "be a
man", and referring to women as being a "bitch"). He made a number of
derogatory comments about pregnant women (such as regularly stating that a
pregnant woman had "tits" that were "fucking huge" and like "cannons" or
"melons" and the on-air talent's breasts needed to be "covered" or not shown
when the pregnant woman was being filmed). In addition, at a department
discussion about a segment on sexism in the workplace, Chillemi said that in
choosing who to hire "if it came down between a man or a woman, of course I'd
pick the man. The woman would most likely get pregnant and leave." Women in
the Fox Advertising and Promotions departments supervised by Chillemi were
also referred to in a derogatory way by a supervisor as his "Promo Girls."

What part of "of course I'd pick the man" "doesn't constitute sexual harassment or discrimination"? The rest of the guy's language isn't as much lewd as it is sexist.