BET has been hit with a sexual discrimination lawsuit by a former employee, over incidents that occurred while producing segments for BET.com.
The lawsuit was filed April 13th in The Supreme Court in the State of New York County of Bronx by Tameika Dorman.
According to the complaint, in February of 2009, Ms. Dorman was editing a video session with a male camera operator named Derek Clarke, who works in the graphics department for BET.
The pair were putting together a previously taped segment that Ms. Dorman was hosting and producing.
“During this editing session, Clarke subjected Ms. Dorman to acts of sexual harassment by repeatedly re-playing video footage of her rear end while she was dressed in a short skirt while walking up a set of stairs.”
According to Ms. Dorman’s lawsuit, she asked Clarke why he kept replaying the footage of her butt.
“Clarke grabbed and repeatedly rubbed his crotch, began to moan and said it was because he loved her butt, that she was sexy and that she did not know what he was going to do [to] her.”
Ms. Dorman complained to a supervisor over the incident, who said she would never have to work with Clarke again.
When Clarke was assigned to work on a Nicki Minaj segment with Ms. Dorman, she complained to Human Resources.
Ms. Dorman claimed she was eventually removed from producing the BET Hip-Hop Honors show and fired for reporting her claim of sexual harassment.
She also claims her termination was
“both retaliatory and based on her gender, including her pregnancy.”
Ms. Dorman seeks monetary damages, discriminatory practices, unlawful termination and lawyer fees. -Kimora Cochran