Fox News to pay $15 million settlement to ex-host who raised concerns about “Gender Pay Gap”
Melissa Francis filed a complaint with the New York State Labor Department last year, arguing Fox News retaliated against her after she brought up the pay gap.
According to records acquired by The Washington Post, Fox News agreed to pay former anchor Melissa Francis $15 million to resolve a dispute over her accusations of a gender pay discrepancy at the network.
Daily Beast reported that Francis filed a separate complaint with the New York State Labor Department last year, alleging that the conservative channel retaliated against her after she brought forth proof of male hosts being paid more than female hosts.
Melissa Francis’ lawyer, Kevin Mintzer, declined to comment on the settlement but shared Francis’ motivation for initiating the complaint- “Melissa filed her charge with the Department of Labor not for herself but for the women of the company who are still there,”. “Contrary to Fox News’ false claims about a ‘new era,’ what happened to Melissa shows that sexism and retaliation are still standard practice at the company. We continue to cooperate with the Department of Labor, and we look forward to receiving the findings of their investigation.”
“We parted ways with Melissa Francis over a year and a half ago and her allegations were entirely without merit,” a Fox News spokesperson said. “We have also fully cooperated with the New York State Department of Labor’s investigation and look forward to the completion of this matter.”
The corporation has undergone “a full makeover of its whole workplace culture,” according to the spokesman, which includes “tripling the size of its HR department, promoting more women in executive levels, elevating women in on-air host positions,” among other steps.
Francis worked his way up at Fox, first as an anchor for Fox Financial in 2012, after previously covering business news for CNBC. She also appeared on Fox News on a regular basis. Francis was hired by Fox News to co-host “Outnumbered” five years later and continued to co-anchor a show on Fox Business. Francis also appeared on Tucker Carlson’s prime-time show on a regular basis. She did, however, resign in November of 2020. She spoke about how she uncovered the alleged wage disparity between men and women at the network, the events that led to her departure, and her decision to file a complaint against her former employer.
When she became a permanent co-host on “Outnumbered,” the former host claimed she did not receive a large pay raise, alleging she was paid less than $1 million, which she felt was less than other hosts on the network. This inspired her to assemble a spreadsheet of the network’s anchor wages, which she obtained from former coworkers and agents. Male anchors made more than women in similar roles, according to a clear pattern. Francis brought up the statistics she had accumulated when she was passed over for a wage hike as part of her new contract negotiations in November 2019.
Francis said she was met with a blunt assessment.
Francis’ lawyer asked Fox News to disclose the salaries of other Fox News on-air stars, which the company refused. She filed for arbitration in early 2020. An arbitrator asked Fox News for the salary information, setting an Oct. 7 deadline — which turned out to be Francis’ last day on the air.
Fox News continues to deny her allegations.