Al Roker and production company have been hit with a lawsuit after a former employee claimed that organization failed to comply with mandatory DEI initiatives.
According to reports, the employee, Bill Schultz, is suing Roker and Al Roker Entertainment for wrongful termination. Schultz, who worked with Roker for almost a decade and on Roker’s animated series, Weather Series, also believes that he was termination for calling out the team for not “upholdng the diversity initiative set up to create a more inclusive environment by bringing more minorities into the writer’s room.”
The lawsuit, which was filed in New York’s federal court, also accuses executives of “callously ignoring the DEI program regulations required by PBS.” It went on to say, “Instead of giving the chances to BIPOC writers as had been the plan, the story editor, repeating a strategy previously advocated and backed by Al Roker Entertainment management in writing, wanted to have ‘non-BIPOC’ writers write the stories, and then bring on a ‘BIPOC’ writer and after the stories/episodes [were] shaped, they could be ‘hand[ed] off to BIPOC writers.’”
Al Schultz also revealed that he was suspended from his job before being terminated. He was working with the company since 2014. In a statement released by Schultz’s attorneys, he said, “I put nine years of my career into Weather Hunters, a project I strongly believe in, with the goal of making a wonderfully crafted show for children to enjoy and learn from.I also believed, and still believe, that the project benefited by creating opportunities for the ‘new voices’ crucial in storytelling and that the Weather Hunters production needed to live up to the ideals it was supposed to represent.”
Al Roker nor a spokesperson have not made a public comment about the lawsuit.