NAAAOM and Entertainment Studios to Amend $10 Billion Lawsuit against AT&T and DirecTV to Include the Newly Discovered Evidence of Racial Discrimination and Cover-up

LOS ANGELES, April 27, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Knoyme King, an African-American female and a 30-year employee of AT&T, through her attorney Louis "Skip" Miller of Miller Barondess, has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against AT&T, Randall Stephenson (Chairman/CEO), Aaron Slator (President), Joyce Roche (Board Member), and current and former executives, John Stankey, Daniel York, Jeff Weber, and Ryan Smith.  Ms. King's lawsuit also states that she reserves the right to name Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, NAACP, the National Urban League and other so-called civil rights organizations as additional defendants in Ms. King's suit for their part in taking donations from AT&T in return for giving AT&T bogus diversity awards, although these so-called civil rights organizations never surveyed AT&T's African American employees to see if they were happy or being mistreated.  These endorsements helped to cover up AT&T's pervasive racism.

The suit states that Ms. King, who works for AT&T President, Aaron Slator, suffered continuous racial discrimination throughout her employment with AT&T, along with the only other African-American female executive assistant (who no longer works for AT&T) who also worked in Mr. Slator's department; both were already employed by AT&T before Mr. Slator was moved from AT&T corporate headquarters in Dallas to Los Angeles and became their boss.

Per the lawsuit, the former assistant complained to AT&T's upper management about Mr. Slator's harassment, even presenting the racist photos and texts Slator had instructed her to copy (including one with young African children smiling and dancing, captioned "It's Friday 'N' Word"), AT&T paid the former assistant a substantial sum of money to keep quiet and allowed AT&T to cover-up Slator's horrendous racist acts, let Slator keep his job, promoted Slator and paid Slator more money.

Ms. King has included Slator's racist texts and photos in her lawsuit as irrefutable evidence of institutionalized racism within the top management of AT&T.  This confirms and corroborates the December 3, 2014 $10 billion racial discrimination lawsuit filed against AT&T and DirecTV, by the National Association of African American-Owned Media ("NAAAOM") and Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios.  That suit also named Slator as the executive who refused to meet with Mr. Allen, an African-American, or take or return his phone calls for close to two years while Mr. Slator took Mr. Allen's white counterparts out to breakfast, lunch, dinner and golf outings at Mr. Slator's country club.

"This is one of the worst moments in American corporate history," said Byron Allen, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Entertainment Studios. "It's deplorable that AT&T would treat anyone with such disrespect and racism, let alone, try and cover it up.  All of this occurred at the highest levels of AT&T, and all of these executives must immediately resign.  Further, President Obama and FCC Chairman Wheeler should not let AT&T acquire DirecTV. All Americans need to stand-up to AT&T and stop this racism. What these companies don't understand, is that with the power of the internet, we're getting an overwhelming amount of information against them and the other media companies we are suing. Unfortunately for them, they likely will be facing similar lawsuits almost every day.  Until they give us the respect we deserve, we will continue to give the public, the courts, and government regulators the truth." 

NAAAOM and Entertainment Studios also filed a similar, $20 billion racial discrimination lawsuit against Comcast Corporation and Time Warner Cable on February 20, 2015. "The longer these companies turn their heads and continue to discriminate against 100% African American-owned media, the more we will expose them and their deeply embedded racism to the public and government regulators," said Mark DeVitre, President of NAAAOM.  "The evidence in Ms. King's complaint against the entire upper management of AT&T absolutely confirms the racism stated in our complaint against AT&T. After looking at the photos Ms. King brought forward, Randall Stephenson, Aaron Slator and the other related executives at AT&T, as well as DirecTV's Dan York, should be ashamed of themselves and the racism they cover-up, stand for and continue to perpetuate.  Everyone should join us at www.naaaom.com so we can keep you informed and stop the racism. With this kind of evidence, President Obama, the FCC and Chairman Wheeler must stop the AT&T-DirecTV merger – inherent, institutionalized racism must not be allowed to grow bigger with these companies coming together."

NAAAOM and Entertainment Studios are seeking to amend their $10 billion lawsuit against AT&T and DirecTV for racial discrimination in contracting with the racist evidence brought forward by Ms. King's lawsuit.  AT&T also lost its motion to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission's illegal throttling lawsuit against AT&T, which details how AT&T substantially cheated its customers by slowing their internet bandwidth.

You can see the racist pictures and text, review Ms. King's lawsuit, as well as NAAAOM and Entertainment Studios' lawsuits, at www.naaaom.com. #DROPATT #STOPATTRACISM #STOPTHERACISM

About NAAAOM:

NAAAOM's mission is to eliminate racial discrimination and secure the economic inclusion of truly 100% African American-owned media through fair contracting and equal treatment practices. 

About Entertainment Studios:

Entertainment Studios owns seven 24-hour HD cable networks: PETS.TV, COMEDY.TV, RECIPE.TV, CARS.TV, ES.TV, MYDESTINATION.TV, and JUSTICE CENTRAL.TV.  The company also produces, distributes, and sells advertising for 38 television programs, making it one of the largest independent producers/distributors of first-run syndicated television programming for broadcast television stations. With a library of over 5,000 hours of owned content across multiple genres, Entertainment Studios provides video content to broadcast television stations, cable television networks, mobile devices, multimedia platforms, and the World Wide Web.  Our mission is to provide excellent programming to our viewers, online users, and Fortune 500 advertising partners. Chairman and CEO Byron Allen founded the company in 1993. Headquartered in Los Angeles, it has offices in New York, Chicago, Denver, and Raleigh. For more information, visit: www.es.tv

Media Contacts:
Entertainment Studios:  Eric Peterkofsky  [email protected] 
310-277-3500

NAAAOM:  Mark DeVitre [email protected] 
424-242-0544

Miller Barondess: Skip Miller [email protected] 
310-552-4400

SOURCE National Association for African American Owned Media