Jeff Vaughn says it was a 2022 billboard that convinced him being White and male was becoming a liability.
The then-evening anchor at CBS’s flagship Los Angeles television station remembers seeing an ad for his news program — and realizing it didn’t feature him. It did include all of his co-anchors, none of whom, he says, was a straight White man like him.
“That was a real gut punch,” Vaughn, 60, said in an interview. “If you take a look at every person that’s on the billboard, it’s somebody that CBS sees as checking the box, whether it’s a woman or a minority or LGBTQ.”
In his recollection, the incident was one of a string of slights — coinciding with a diversity campaign at the broadcasting network — that culminated in his firing in 2023. His replacement, who was Black, got his own billboard.
Vaughn sued CBS in July 2024 and the case is scheduled to go to trial in September.
If the Trump administration has its way, more suits like Vaughn’s will come before the courts as the government seeks to redress what it sees as discrimination against White men. In December, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission urged White men to come forward with complaints about their treatment by employers looking to diversify their workforces.
However, many of the White men doing so are confronting the same blunt reality as countless employees of other genders, races or sexual orientations who have stood up to corporate HR over perceived wrongdoing: Bringing a lawsuit against your employer may well damage your career.
Vaughn says he hasn’t been able to land a network job since filing his case. The near-30-year news veteran is creating content for outlets such as Fox News, iHeartRadio and conservative network Salem News Channel via his own company, at a fraction of his former pay.
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CBS, whose parent Paramount Global agreed to end many of its diversity, equality and inclusion practices ahead of its merger with Skydance Media, said in a legal filing that Vaughn was fired for poor performance and that the company has a constitutional right to decide who sits in the anchor chair. CBS had no additional comment.
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Airing discrimination and harassment claims publicly may help to protect other workers from similar wrongdoing. But since US lawsuits are on the public record, a potential employer can find out with a basic Google search whether a job candidate has ever made a claim. More than 90% of cases are settled before a lawsuit is even filed, Allred said, as both sides would rather “keep the peace and move on with their lives.”
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That has not been lost on James Harker, who worked as a freelance lighting technician on movies and commercials in the New York City area for almost three decades, up until 2023.
He says those jobs ended when he sued Meta, along with an advertising agency and another company, over an internship program that he considered discriminatory. The program offered ethnic-minority workers opportunities to shadow professionals and learn new skills. He says that while working on a contract job for Meta, one of those interns was given a title and role superior to him, even though in his view the person had less experience.
Meta and other defendants said in a legal filing he had never applied for the role in question, was not eligible for the DEI program and lacked legal standing to sue over it. Harker’s case was dismissed in 2024 and is now pending appeal. Meta had no additional comment.
Harker, 61, says he’s spent most of his retirement nest egg and other savings as he’s tried to find a new job and waited for the case to get resolved. Even a win is unlikely to make him whole, he concedes, as he’s suing over a one-day contract.
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The post The Trump Administration Wants White Men to Claim Discrimination. This Is What Happens When They Do appeared first on American Renaissance.
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