Eek! It is a TOUGH week to be Oprah Winfrey, folks!
She's already been injured trying to carry a large flower arrangement sent to her by Tyler Perry, has been harassed about looking "old as hell" by random Twitter users, and now, her troubled OWN network has been slapped with a lawsuit on the grounds of sex and disability discrimination, failure to prevent discrimination, retaliation and willful failure to pay wages upon discharge or termination!
According to legal documents, filed Friday in the El Lay Superior Court, Carolyn Hommel asserts that she was originally hired as senior director of scheduling and acquisitions back in 2010, and during her time at the company, co-owned by Discovery Communications, she was considered a valuable employee and even expected to become a vice president!
All of that changed, however, when she was forced to take a medical leave to accommodate her pregnancy! It was then, she says, that her duties were stripped from her and re-assigned to a temporary employee, and even when she returned to the office she was shut out of meetings she would have normally been required to attend!
Within a month of giving birth, Hommel was informed that she was being laid off, and even though she was told to re-apply for a vice president job, she didn't get it, as she alleges that her direct boss, Michael Garner, constructed a fake performance review that "made Hommel's job duties and responsibilities appear less 'senior' and therefore not a candidate for the new vice president position."
Well, if all of this is true, then can anyone actually blame this woman for calling in the lawyers?!
YEESH!
Especially since it's at a company founded by a woman who should know better than anyone what kind of pitfalls and institutionalized sexism come with trying to get ahead in the business world!
We just hope that justice is served, if actually warranted, and that the Big O goes out of her way to right what seems to a grievous WRONG!
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