Wendy Bell has filed a lawsuit against WTAE-TV after being fired over a Facebook post. Bell, a Caucasian woman, claimed in court documents that if she was black, her post on black-on-black crime would have earned her praises for tackling the topic like President Obama.
Wendy Bell‘s lawsuit claims that she was discriminated against for being white and for saying what every other black person is thinking. In March of 2016, Bell, a veteran news anchor for WTAE in Pennsylvania, was fired.
Bell, a mother of five, had worked for the station for almost 20 years. The reporter was axed for the following reason. On her Facebook page, she wrote a post about being distraught after reporting on yet another deadly shooting in the city that she loves.
A horrific shooting at a backyard barbecue left four people injured and six dead, including a pregnant woman. The reporter wrote:
“You needn’t be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago Wednesday. They are young black men, likely in their teens or in their early 20s. They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs. These boys have been in the system before. They’ve grown up there. They know the police. They’ve been arrested.”
It is worth noting that, the killers’ identities were unknown when Bell shared her post. The Facebook remark rapidly went viral, and she was called racist and other names that will not be mentioned here. She quickly deleted the post, but about one week later she was fired from her job. The station said in a statement:
“WTAE has ended its relationship with anchor Wendy Bell. Wendy’s recent comments on a WTAE Facebook page were inconsistent with the company’s ethics and journalistic standards.”
On Monday, Bell’s attorney, Sam Cordes, filed a federal lawsuit claiming that if she was black, her post would have earned her a raise, not get her fired. Cordes stated:
“Had an African-American journalist said the same thing, it wouldn’t have generated the same quote-outcry-unquote. What she said was benign at best. President Obama has said similar things.”
According to the attorney, Belle wants her job reinstated and to be compensated for back pay. Cordes added:
“Had Ms. Bell written the same comments about white criminal suspects or had her race not been white, Defendant would not have fired her, much less disciplined her.”
