A horde of female employees ‘leave’ the company.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: A former employee of Al Jazeera America has filed suit against the media outlet for workplace retaliation, alleging that a manager with close ties to top executives discriminated against female employees and made offensive remarks about Israel and the United States.
Matthew Luke, who started with the network in 2011 as its supervisor of media and archive management, filed the lawsuit in New York Supreme Court on Tuesday, reported Politico.
The complaint alleges Osman Mahmud — who served as Luke’s supervisor in the function of senior vice president of broadcast operations and technology — “[removed] female employees from projects to which they had been previously assigned by other management level employees, [excluded] women from emails and meetings relevant to their assignments, and [made] discriminatory, anti-Semitic and anti-American remarks such as ‘whoever supports Israel should die a fiery death in hell.’ “
Shortly after Luke went to human resources about Mahmud, he alleges he was told he did not fit into the company’s culture and was terminated.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Mahmud denied all charges, calling them “a pack of lies.”
Luke’s lawsuit against Mahmoud doesn’t mark the first time the media executive has had to defend himself in a court of law against accusations of discriminating against women and subsequently using his top floor connections to mitigate the repercussions.
The Post disclosed around November 2014, Mahmud allegedly “took it upon himself” to fire an editor working on the Al Jazeera America program “America Tonight.” The female executive producer of the show cited concerns about the move, about which she hadn’t been consulted, according to the lawsuit.
“Mr. Mahmud became combative and then dismissive of the executive producer even though she outranked him at the Company,” noted the complaint. Mahmud then took the issue to the network’s chief executive, Ehab Al Shihabi, and the executive producer “was directed” to issue an apology to Mahmud.
According to Politico, not long after the lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, Al-Jazeera America also announced that two of its top executives, executive vice president for human resources Diana Lee, and executive vice president for communications Dawn Bridges, were leaving the company.
The current litigation comes at a time of internal turmoil at Al Jazeera America, as the New York Post recently reported.
“Insiders said AJA, funded by the government of Qatar, is laying off staffers and watering down its U.S. editorial voice while programming from sibling Al Jazeera English occupies more air time,” reported the tabloid.