An Emmy Award-winning CBS anchor claimed the Tiffany Network’s blind pursuit for diversity hires led to him getting canned because he is an aging, white, heterosexual male, according to blockbuster lawsuit.
Jeff Vaughn, 58, who spent eight years at a CBS-owned Los Angeles affiliate, alleged he was replaced by a younger, minority news anchor in 2022 in the $5 million discrimination lawsuit against CBS and parent company Paramount Global, which was filed in a California federal court Monday.
The complaint pointed to a CBS goal to ensure that half of all writers be nonwhite by 2023 and an initiative requiring half of all castmembers on their reality shows be minorities.
“CBS decided that there were too many white males at CBS, and it acted accordingly. It needed to solve its ‘white problem’ by firing successful white males,” the complaint alleged.
CBS declined to comment.
Vaughn’s lawsuit follows a similar suit in March by a fired white, heterosexual male freelance writer on CBS’ “SEAL Team” series who accused the network of “blatant” discrimination.
Earlier this year, a Post investigation revealed that CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews had been accused by staffers of promoting minorities while unfairly sidelining white journalists, sparking a major internal human relations probe in 2021.