The Mavs are under fire for sexual harassment at the workplace, but now they are being accused of racial discrimination as well by a woman named Michelle Newsome.
She is suing Cuban and the Mavs for wrongful termination. She spoke to WBAP in Dallas and had some explosive things to say.
Newsome says she was fired without cause based on race and sex, despite being a successful sales executive. Newsome said she was consistently harassed by co-workers for being a black woman, referencing a time she was told she was only hired because of affirmative action.
Later, she was told by a fellow American Airlines Center employee that he found a noose in an IT closet near Cuban’s suite in February of 2011. In a sworn affidavit, that employee claims he reported it to a supervisor, and that Cuban himself removed the noose, threw it away, and did not apologize or send a company-wide message about the incident. The employee also said the room was sanitized the next day, something he described as “not a common occurrence.”
“I felt like Cuban wanted to shut down and chill any discussion of this incident,” the employee said in the affidavit.
The affidavit claims that an employee of a long-time contractor that worked with the Dallas Mavericks and American Airlines Center admitted to placing the noose in the closet. Nate Rutkowski, according to the affidavit, continued to work at the AAC in the same proximity as the employee, despite alerting human resources about the incident.
Newsone and her attorney want Cuban to be disposed under oath.
If you want to read some of the court docs, flip the page…