Disney Channel executive says she was fired for properly reporting a sexual harassment complaint on her boss

A lawsuit filed by a former Disney executive charges Disney
Channels' VP of brand strategy & research, Jimmy Blackburn,
with sexual harassment and retaliation
According to the showbiz trade paper Variety, a former Disney Channels executive filed a lawsuit on Wednesday alleging she was subject to retaliation and was ultimately fired after she appropriately relayed a complaint of sexual harassment about her boss made by other female workers at the House of Mouse.

Jocelyn McDowell, Disney Channels' former director of multi-platform and research, was obligated by law and Disney employee policy to report her boss, Jimmy Blackburn, for making sexist and inappropriate remarks to two other female Disney Channels' staffers in February 2015 after those employees came to her about the alleged complaint.

Although she was told her complaints would be kept confidential by HR, Blackburn still found out that McDowell relayed the sexual harassment complaints to his superiors, and he then began intimidating, threatening and harassing McDowell at work to make sure no one would cross him again. In essence, he shot the messenger as well as the female workers who made the complaints.

"I'll have your job by the end of the days," Blackburn is reported to have said to McDowell in a rage in response to finding out she reported him to HR. "No one does this to me."

Blackburn is currently the vice president of brand strategy and research at Disney Channels Worldwide, a multi-national TV portfolio of 94 kids and family entertainment channels available in 169 countries in 33 different languages worldwide, inside the Walt Disney Company. Blackburn previously held executive positions at Nickelodeon TV, MTV networks, TNT and Cartoon Networks.


McDowell had worked directly under Blackburn during the time of the incident, but soon after she had done her duty to simply pass on the information of the employee complaints to Blackburn's superiors, he began retaliating against her and blamed her and the two female complainants for the whole incident.

Former Disney Channel executive Jocelyn McDowell filed a lawsuit
against the Walt Disney Company for retaliation when she did her duty
in passing on a sexual harassment complaint about her boss from other
female staffers to senior management
McDowell, who as a supervisor was obligated to report any allegations of sexual harassment from her subordinates to her superiors and HR, was then humiliatingly demoted with most of duties taken away from her, shortly before being fired by Mickey Mouse himself.

This is hardly the first that the Walt Disney Company has been accused of illegally retaliating against a manager for properly relaying another employee's claim of sexual harassment in compliance to federal and state laws.

In 2013, former Disney manager of collections and preservations, Robert Klein, filed an eerily similar lawsuit in U.S. District after he properly relayed another employee's claim of sexual harassment against a female employee.

Klein reached out to human resources (HR) in August 2011, after a male subordinate, Kiara Gellar, told him that a female photo library supervisor, Andrea Carbone, told Klein that she sent Gellar unwanted lewd text messages of a sexual nature.

That lawsuit alleged that Disney retaliated by firing Klein the following month and blackballed him from working in the entertainment industry. Both Klein and Carbone were fired by Disney in retaliation to the claims of sexual harassment.

Clearly, it makes no sense for Disney to retaliate against, not only the accusers, but also the supervisors involved (i.e., the messengers) who responsibly relayed the complaints of sexual harassment to HR, unless one realizes that Disney is systematically doing this to everyone involved in a sexual harassment complaint, in order to discourage any of its employees, whether that be staff members or supervisors, from getting involved in such scandals that could potentially hurt the reputation of the company in any way, even if they are the alleged victims.

Disney has long considered itself one of the most liberal and politically-correct employers in corporate America; however, it appears even they are somewhat hypocritical on sensitive workplace issues such as sexual harassment—or even reporting it—at work, suggesting it is still a "good ole boys' club."


According to the suit, Blackburn made numerous inappropriate and condescendingly sexist remarks while critiquing several female employees on their presentation skills at work.

Robert Klein (left) similarly sued Disney in 2013 for retaliation after he simply
and responsibly relayed a sexual harassment complaint from one of his staffers
He is alleged to have told Disney staffer Angela Tinari in February 2015, "You are not my best presenter, but you are attractive so it will help you in that room."

On the day of the presentation, Blackburn then made another chauvanistic remark to Tinari, "Why you not wearing Heels today?"

Blackburn also ordered several female presenters to speak with a deeper, more manly voice, so that other Disney employees would take them more seriously as managers at work.

Tinari and another Disney staffer, Heather Semptertegui, reported these inappropriate sexist comments from Blackburn as a formal sexual harassment complaint to their supervisor McDowell.

And McDowell, acting properly as their supervisor, had no choice but to pass on these complaints to a senior vice president above Blackburn and HR, who apparently told Blackburn about the complaints.


Two weeks later, Blackburn directly confronted McDowell, accusing her, in a fit of rage, of reporting him for sexual harassment, when in fact, all she did was properly relay complaints from other female staffers to Blackburn's supervisors.

Sr. Reseatch Analyst Angela Tinari was fired from ABC TV after she
filed a sexual harassment complaint against Disney Channels VP Jimmy
Blackburn in 2015
"Blackburn's repeated physical and verbal outbursts and displays of anger were classic bullying behavior," the suit alleges. "His ranting to other employees in the office about how angry he was and outward threats about terminating Ms. McDowell were intended to dissuade any other employee from coming forward with similar complaints or lending support to the complaints Ms. McDowell reported."

Needless to say, an HR investigation found Blackburn had engaged in "inappropriate conduct" but only gave him an ineffective slap on the hand.

HR stopped short of accusing Blackburn of violating the law or Disney's corporate policies against harassment and retaliation.

Blackburn was then free to retaliate with impunity against everyone who was involved in the reporting of sexual harassment charges, including McDowell, who really had nothing to do with the actual complaint except acting as an intermediary in relaying the complaint to upper management.

He then proceeded to isolate and marginalize Tinari, one of the complainants, from any work functions, resulting in her resignation a couple of months later in the summer of 2015.


McDowell was demoted and transferred off of Blackburn's team and onto the market research team, where she no longer had any direct contact with senior executives inside the company.

Disney Channels Worldwide VP of Multi-platform and research Jimmy Blackburn
This, however, did not prevent Blackburn from continuing to retaliate against McDowell within the company.

Blackburn is alleged to have directed other employees and vendors not to talk or work with McDowell, making her persona non grata within the company and leaving her isolated with little to do within the company as she was repeatedly rebuffed in her attempts to find projects to work on in the company.

Soon after, she received a number of unexpected negative performance reviews before she herself was fired in July of 2017.

Apparently, if you are a female staffer working at the Walt Disney Company, it is not wise to cross any of the male executives or rebuff their advances as that my have dire consequences to your position within the company and career trajectory at the House of Mouse.

This is the way it's always been inside the Walt Disney Company, even when Uncle Walt was in charge. Apparently, there is no such thing as sexual harassment inside the "Happiest Place on Earth," according to HR, and that's the way they want to keep it.

Sources:

Comments

Post a Comment