Colleen Dominguez Sues Fox Sports 1 For Discrimination

LOS ANGELES (AP) — TV personality Colleen Dominguez alleges that Fox Sports 1, her employer for more than a year, was guilty of age and gender discrimination when it withheld assignments and refused to air those she initiated on her own.

In a complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Dominguez claims she was hired as a key sports personality with experience in most major sports.

Fox Sports 1, in an email from Vice President Dan Bell, said the company was declining comment.

Dominguez, 54, said she worked for NBC Network News from 1996 to 2003, for ESPN from 2003 to 2014. Ten months before her contract expired, she said she was recruited by Fox and she signed a contract with them on March 1, 2014.

When some of her interviews were rejected, she says she was told those would “muddy the waters” for other reporters.

She emailed the company’s president and he promised to look into it, but she says she never heard back from him.

She quoted one Fox producer, who sent her a text that said: “you haven’t done anything wrong at all. Just because 5 men at a company want to be gratified by 24-year-old women doesn’t make you bad at your job.”

Her lack of assignments and rejection of interviews she initiated cut down on her exposure and will cut down on her future income, she said.

Dominguez is seeking exemplary and punitive damages, as well as attorney’s fees, from Fox.