A former employee at American Airlines Center, where the Dallas Mavericks play their home games, is accusing Mavs owner Mark Cuban of racial discrimination. Michelle Newsome, filed a petition “seeking documents from the Mavericks and to depose owner Mark Cuban in consideration of a lawsuit she might bring for racial discrimination” in Dallas County Court on Thursday, according to Rachel Axon and Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today.
Newsome alleges that, in 2011, a noose was discovered hanging in an IT closet in the stadium. She heard of the noose’s presence from another employee at AAC. The other employee, a male, captured a photo of the noose, says Newsome. Both Newsome and the other employee are black.
According to Newsome, the noose was placed in the closet by a contractor who works with the Arena Operating Company.
Newsome says the male employee witnessed Cuban throw the noose in the trash. Newsome said the following, according to USA Today:
“That was disheartening because it was underwriting the toxic racial climate there because nothing was done. No apology made,” Newsome said.
“There was nothing done and the most disheartening thing was the fact that Mr. Cuban is the one who took down the noose and discarded it. … They tried to brush it under the carpet. There was no action taken by him. There was nothing that said, there was no action taken by Mr. Cuban and he didn’t say anything like that this is intolerable, that this can’t be tolerated. There was nothing at all stated saying this was wrong, this is not allowed, this is not representative of a company culture that I want to have for one of my businesses.”
Newsome says that this wasn’t the only instance of racism she witnessed during her time working at AAC. She complained multiple times about racial discrimination, pay inequity, harassment, and bullying and taunting from her co-workers. She believes that her complaint to human resources in 2015 was the reason why she was fired in March 2017.
Newsome’s attorney, Rogge Dunn, said the following, per USA Today:
“It’s amazing to me that after an incident occurs — and nobody’s blaming Cuban for putting it there — but no action taken that we know of against the contractor and the white employee that put it there,” Dunn said. “Then you’d think they’d have some racial sensitivity training. Most of my corporate clients, every year they’re giving racial sensitivity and sexual harassment training as a matter of course, and that never occurred at the AOC.”
This is not the first negative press Cuban and the Mavs have received this season. The organization was accused of a culture of rampant sexual assault in a Sports Illustrated story in February, and Cuban admitted responsibility for failing to fire a Mavs beat writer who physically abused his girlfriend.
