Fox news agrees to $12 million settlement with Jewish former staffer
Fox Inc headquarters in New York City on April 19, 2023. Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh June 30, 2023
Fox News agreed on Friday to pay $12 million to Abby Grossberg, a former Jewish producer who accused the network of maintaining a workplace rife with sexism and antisemitism.
Grossberg’s attorney, Parisis Filippatos, said the settlement resolves all of her claims against Fox News and the individuals she named in her complaints, including former host Tucker Carlson and some of his senior producers.
Grossberg, who was head of booking for Carlson’s primetime program, filed a lawsuit in March detailing a number of offensive jokes about Jews made by Alexander McCaskill, Carlson’s senior producer, last year. Fox forced Grossberg to take administrative leave after she filed the lawsuits.
According to the lawsuit, McCaskill repeatedly made antisemitic statements targeting Grossberg and another Jewish employee, according to Grossberg’s suit. In one instance, McCaskill made fun of Eldad Yaron, an Israeli-born booking producer, for buying lunch at a Jewish bakery known as Breads Bakery, telling staffers that he went “to see his people” at the “Jew bakery.”
Despite the settlement, which dismisses the lawsuit filed in district court in New York and Delaware, Grossberg said that she stands by her allegations.
Fox News had previously contested Grossberg’s claims, saying the network quickly engaged an independent outside counsel after she raised concerns and concluded that her legal claims had no merit and that some of her allegations were “patently false.”
A Fox News spokeswoman said on Friday that the network is “pleased to have resolved the matter without further litigation.”
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