A former KCAL and KCBS anchor has filed a $5 million lawsuit claiming he was fired because he was a white man.
Jeff Vaughn is represented by America First Legal, the conservative legal group that targets diversity, equity and inclusion programs and calls them illegal “anti-white discrimination.”
Vaughn worked for CBS’s broadcast group for eight years until his departure last September. In the lawsuit, he says he was never given a reason for his dismissal.
“But it was clear,” the suit said states. “He was fired because he is an older, white, heterosexual man.”
America First Legal also represents Brian Beneker, a script coordinator on “SEAL Team,” who sued CBS for failing to hire him for a writing job on the show. In that case, CBS cited the First Amendment in support of its right to engage in various hiring practices.
Both lawsuits cite CBS’s goal to increase Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) representation in TV writers’ rooms to 40% in 2021-2022 and to 50% in 2022-2023.
Vaughn’s lawsuit also notes that CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon has been praised for prioritizing DEI initiatives and for hiring and promoting women and people of color.
Before he was let go, Vaughn claims he was excluded from reporting on the September 11th anniversary. He also claims that he was left out of a news broadcast billboard in favor of his non-white and female colleagues, and that he was excluded from social events.
In 2023, the stations auditioned replacements for his position and allowed them into the studio while Vaughn was working, the lawsuit alleges.
“All of the individuals who came on set to audition for his position were younger, racial minorities,” the complaint said.
The station group hired Chauncy Glover, who had been an anchor at the ABC affiliate in Houston for the past eight years. The lawsuit alleges that Glover — who is black — had “minimal” experience, although Glover has worked in TV news since graduating from college in 2007.
In a similar discrimination case, Kyle Hunter sued KCAL and KCBS in 2012, claiming the stations refused to hire him as a weatherman because they were only looking for “younger, attractive women.”
In that case, CBS argued that the choice of weathermen was a matter of freedom of expression, which trumped the discrimination claim.
A California appeals court sided with CBS, ruling that Hunter had not provided sufficient evidence that he was the victim of discrimination.
“The fact that CBS hired two younger women to serve as primetime weather anchors does not support a rational inference of pretext or discriminatory hostility,” the appeals court ruled in that case.
