A female reporter named Tammy Dombeck Campbell was allegedly not given a job because of her age. After this, a Texas CBS broadcast affiliate is paying $215000 in a lawsuit. This was announced by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on Monday.
The EEOC had put charges on KXTA, locally known as CBS 11, that they had denied hiring Campbell. It was for the job of a full-time traffic reporter. However, Campbell had even worked as a freelance non-staff traffic reporter at their station earlier.
The station morning full-time traffic reporter resigned in October 2014. After this, the company issued the search for a job replacement and announced that they were looking for an “ideal candidate”. They announced that the candidate was required to have strong knowledge of local traffic in the DFW area. Moreover, the candidate had to have at least 5 years of professional broadcasting experience.
The CBS station later hired a 24-year-old woman who was a former National Football League cheerleader even though she did not fulfill the hiring criteria set by the CBS 11. Thereafter the job was also offered to a 27-year-old candidate who later withdrew from the hiring process.
According to EEOC, this conduct of the station had violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA). Furthermore, this strongly prohibits discrimination against people of 40 years age or older than that.
A suit was filed in the US district court for the northern district of Texas by EEOC. Moreover, after this, CBS has to pay $215000 to Campbell since it was proved that she was qualified for the job. However, they offered the job to a less-qualified younger applicant.
