Newsweek may be facing a massive new gender-discrimination lawsuit, HuffPost reports.
The focus appears to be on former editor-in-chief Matt McAllester, who held the position from February through August. He was out of the job when a sex and age discrimination suit filed against Time Inc. by Time’s former Europe editor, Catherine Mayer, came to light; McAllester was “mentioned prominently as one of the main alleged perpetrators,” according to the New York Post.
Mayer’s attorney, Ann Olivarius, told HuffPost that “we’ve spoken to a number of people about a separate suit against Newsweek, and a separate suit against Matt McAllester individually.”
Several staffers also spoke to the publication about “a culture of fear” at Newsweek after McAllester came on board. Multiple high-ranking women were either fired or left their jobs. He allegedly instated a trial run for a “quota system” with online posts, but the experiment ultimately only targeted junior female staffers. And there were markedly fewer cover stories about women and by women writers during his tenure. (A few people came to McAllester’s defense, and all the women who spoke out against him said that “Newsweek’s gender problem was far bigger than any one person.”)
But one of the most cringe-worthy details to emerge from the HuffPost report? McAllester is said to have “called himself a feminist and would always say how much he liked Beyoncé.”
Read the full story here.
