Oprah Winfrey Network Staff Sues Company over Sexual Harassment and Pregnancy Discrimination

An employee of the Oprah Winfrey Network recently filed a lawsuit against the company, with allegations of sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination, among others. Filed on November 16th, 2016, the complaint was brought to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The Plaintiff, Rebecca Taylor, claims that Nakisha Gowen, who acts as her supervisor in the deliverables and fulfillment services department of the network, started harassing her in 2013 when she was pregnant of three months. She also adds that the offensive behavior did not stop, even after giving birth to her son in November of that year.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the supervisor would begin staff meetings with a discussion of horror movies, which would end up with Gowen acting out some of the intimate scenes in those movies. It went up a notch in 2014 when she allegedly trying to grab Taylor's breasts while talking about the obsession with babies with women's breasts. The lawsuit adds that these actions gave the plaintiff a "sexually hostile and abusive work environment" which degraded and humiliated her in front of colleagues.

She also adds that when she did get a promotion, she accuses the company of not providing her the proper raise that she should receive, moving from specialist to manager. As the New York Daily News points out, the complaint looks into Ms. Gowen's involvement in the matter.

And while Taylor did report the incidents to the network's Human Resources department several times, she felt that no proper action was done to deal with the issue. At most, the Oprah Winfrey-led company had a compliance training, which discussed sexual harassment, among others, with a hired attorney and the Human Resources staff in attendance. However, the complaint states, the continuous remarks from Gowen and the lack of definitive action by the company brought emotional distress to Taylor. These led her to take an 11-month leave from OWN, which started in 2015.

The network, which started on Jan 1st, 2011, has not provided any comment regarding the matter