Earlier this year, a BET executive sued the network and it’s parent company, Viacom, for discrimination and defamation and claimed “she was terminated while on medical leave for breast cancer treatment.” After a lot of back and forth, both Viacom and BET announced earlier this week that a settlement has been reached with the former executive, Zola Mashariki. But what happened, exactly?
Earlier this year, a BET executive sued the network and it’s parent company, Viacom, for discrimination and defamation and claimed “she was terminated while on medical leave for breast cancer treatment.” After a lot of back and forth, both Viacom and BET announced earlier this week that a settlement has been reached with the former executive, Zola Mashariki. But what happened, exactly?
For starters, Mashariki joined the TV channel back in May of 2015 “as an executive vice president and head of original programming.” During her time with BET, she attracted top talent and shows to the network while allegedly being subjected to gender discrimination by “Viacom, BET, their human resources departments and company executives.” According to the lawsuit, the workplace atmosphere was “hostile to women and their advancement.” Additionally, she claimed she was “refused work opportunities and asked to perform more work for less pay and lower title compared to male employees.” When she spoke out against the treatment, she claims she “suffered retaliation.”
On top of all that, she was diagnosed with breast cancer near the end of 2016 but continued to work “until the day of her surgery in early February of this year,” when she went on protected medical leave, according to the lawsuit. During her leave, she was diagnosed with another, “more severe type of breast cancer” that required a longer leave. According to the lawsuit, instead of being supportive, the network began questioning her diagnosis and even “interfered with her disability request and deliberately damaged her reputation.”
Then, when she was recovering from a second surgery, it was “falsely announced” that she would be leaving BET. The network even suggested that she had been “terminated for performance issues, despite her outstanding performance reviews,” the lawsuit states.
However, Masharik was on protected medical leave, protected by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and she was even protected by the California Family Rights Act. Because of this, the lawsuit alleges that her firing “while on protected leave violated the Family and Medical Leave Act and the California Family Rights Act and was part of BET and Viacom’s egregiously reckless and inhumane treatment of her.”
For the better part of the year, BET and Viacom pushed back against the allegations. Fortunately for Mashariki, though, a settlement was finally reached, and BET even issued the following statement regarding the matter:
“As head of original programming, Zola Mashariki brought fresh new content and top-notch talent to BET Networks. We thank Ms. Mashariki for her many valuable contributions, and our thoughts are with her and her family as she focuses on her health. The litigation between the parties has been resolved. Neither party will make any further comment on this matter.”
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