Former NY1 anchors allege retaliation by Charter Communications

STAMFORD — The five female journalists who settled in December an age-and-gender discrimination lawsuit involving Charter Communications’ Spectrum News NY1 cable news channel are alleging that the company is retaliating against them in response to the litigation.

A complaint filed Monday with the New York City Commission on Human Rights outlined the allegations, which include the assertion that Stamford-based Charter has refused to submit the five former NY1 anchors’ entries for this year’s Emmy Awards despite having previously agreed to do so.

“Emmy Awards are among the most prestigious recognitions a television journalist can receive for her work, and such recognitions are of enormous benefit to one’s career and marketability,” the complaint said in part. “Notably, all complainants are now looking for alternate employment, and an Emmy nomination would help in that search. By refusing to submit them for Emmy Awards, Charter is materially harming complainants and retaliating against them.”

Among its requests, the complaint asked the commission to investigate Charter’s “discriminatory and retaliatory conduct” and that the company “cease and desist from any further discriminatory or retaliatory conduct.”

In a statement, Charter denied the allegations.

“We reached a confidential resolution at the end of last year and, as a result, have mutually agreed to part ways,” the statement said. “While the women no longer work at NY1, we do not prohibit former employees from submitting their work for Emmy consideration.”

The complaint comes six weeks after Roma Torre, Kristen Shaughnessy, Jeanine Ramirez, Vivian Lee and Amanda Farinacci announced that they had reached a settlement with Charter of the lawsuit that they had filed in June 2019. Neither the plaintiffs nor Charter have disclosed the settlement terms.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs accused NY1 of discriminating against women older than 40. All of them were older than 40 when the lawsuit was filed.

Charter, which took over NY1 through its $55 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable in 2016, denied the allegations and said that NY1 valued gender and age diversity. Among NY1’s on-air talent, 57 percent were women, 55 percent were older than 40, and 25 percent are women older than 40, according to data that the company provided in 2019.

Torre, Shaughnessy, Ramirez, Lee and Farinacci are represented by Wigdor LLP, a Manhattanbased law firm widely known for its work in gender-discrimination cases.

“We are confident that the New York City Commission on Human Rights will aggressively pursue NY1 for its retaliatory and vindictive conduct in denying our clients the honor of submitting them for the Emmy nominations they so deserve,” Wigdor partners Douglas Wigdor and David Gottlieb said in a statement.

Among other cases, Wigdor represented Lauren Bonner, a former executive at Stamfordbased hedge fund Point72 in a gender-discrimination complaint filed in February 2018. Her lawsuit was settled last September.