Mass Enchantment, the imprint co-founded by Nas, faces a discrimination lawsuit from a white government who alleges she was the sufferer of racial discrimination.
Nas’ firm Mass Enchantment was hit with a racial discrimination lawsuit from Melissa Cooper, a documentary producer, and former head of growth, who’s white. The lawsuit, which Cooper and her attorneys at Pechman Legislation Group filed in a federal court docket in Manhattan on Tuesday, specifies the races of the events concerned as a result of nature of the allegations.
The lawsuit claims that firm executives discriminated towards Cooper by eradicating her from a number of high-value tasks, “making a hostile work setting,” and terminating her employment. Most of the allegations revolve round a documentary, Freaknik: The Wildest Celebration By no means Advised, a couple of Traditionally Black Faculty and College (HBCU) picnic that grew to become culturally vital to Atlanta, set to debut on Hulu subsequent yr. Cooper is an government producer on the movie.
Mass Enchantment executives named within the lawsuit embody Peter Bittenbender, the corporate’s chief government, who’s white — and likewise an government producer on Freaknik, — and Jenya Meggs, the senior VP for partnerships and content material acquisition, who’s Black. Whereas not particularly named as a defendant within the lawsuit, Nas is a companion at Mass Enchantment, which is known as.
Cooper, who has virtually 20 years of expertise in tv, has labored on many tasks with Black themes and protagonists. Meggs, who isn’t an government producer on Freaknik, is a former content material producer for Apple Music, and government producer on the BET George Floyd particular.
The majority of the grievance stems from back-and-forth textual content messages between Meggs and one other Freaknik government producer who’s Black and never an worker of Mass Enchantment, through which Meggs expresses frustration at Cooper, a white girl, being on the challenge as an alternative of her.
Cooper’s lawyer, Louis Pechman, says, “The racial animosity mirrored within the textual content messages is solely breathtaking.” The lawsuit claims Cooper was the sufferer of “venomous and racist feedback about ‘white folks’ and ‘crackers.’”
In an escalating battle, Meggs complains about Bittenbender’s resolution to not rent a candidate she referred to the corporate. Later, points come up round Meggs allegedly pushing Mass Enchantment to rent a pal of hers for an HR place, offered as “an unbiased mediator,” to dealer options between herself and Cooper over varied tasks.
When Meggs informed Bittenbender she couldn’t work with Cooper anymore, the lawsuit claims that Bittenbender eliminated Cooper from a number of tasks, together with Mass Enchantment’s Hip-Hop 50 Reside Live performance at Yankee Stadium, together with others on which Meggs was staffed. This “successfully stripped Cooper of her main function at Mass Enchantment.”
In June, Cooper was informed she was being fired. The lawsuit claims that Bittenbender and the corporate made no effort to analyze her claims of racial discrimination earlier that month.