Diana Falzone, a host of web programming for Fox News, claims that she has been “shunned and ostracized” and is being assigned “ministerial and entry-level tasks” since filing a gender and disability discrimination lawsuit against the network earlier this month.
Falzone filed an amended lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court on Monday, in which she also claims that her office computer was hacked, and that when the IT department removed it, she was told that her working files may have been wiped or deleted.
Her attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, said in a statement that “despite its recent proclamations about ‘zero tolerance’ and a culture free of discrimination and retaliation, Fox has doubled down against Diana Falzone. After filing this case, Diana has been shunned at the office and has been given no assignments. Fox can’t hide behind ‘alternative facts’ — nothing has changed.” Smith represented former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson‘s sexual harassment lawsuit against ex-Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who denied the charges. But it led to an internal investigation and Ailes’ ouster.
A Fox News spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment.
In her lawsuit, Falzone made claims suggesting she was banned from taking part in on-air activities at Fox News three days after writing an article about how she suffered from endometriosis, a gynecological condition she said led to her infertility. Falzone said in the lawsuit that the article had been approved by the company before it was published.
In the suit, Falzone claims that she was banned from ever appearing on FoxNews.com, and that she would never again be permitted to host her own shows, conduct her own interviews, appear on Fox TV, or even do voiceovers.
In her amended complaint, she claims that since she filed her lawsuit, most of her story ideas have been rejected, when her bosses had been more amenable before that. She claims that she has been given only entry-level tasks that are typically given to interns and trainees. She also said that the network has refused to put her back on the air, and she characterized the actions as “a malicious course of retaliatory conduct designed to ruin her career.”
