A former writer for the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Smackdown series is suing Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon and the WWE, in addition to a number of other supervisors and writers, according to court documents.
The writer – Britney Abrahams – filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on April 24, accusing the WWE of “pretextual termination” after she objected to repeated examples of “offensively racist and stereotypical jargon” in the scripts she was working on, according to the court documents.
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One of these instances involved a scene written by defendant and former WWE writer Chris Dunn, according to the documents. The backstage scene was for Bianca Belair – one of two female African American wrestlers in the WWE – and it included a line that Abrahamas found and still finds “negatively stereotypical of race and gender.”
Abrahams, in response, emailed defendant Ryan Callahan, VP of Friday Night Smackdown, saying: “I know I’m new, I’m not trying to be disrespectful or step on anyone’s toes, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that [Ms. Belair]’s scene includes racial jargon and offensive stereotypes, particularly her go-home line.”
The WWE and other named defendants, according to the court documents, failed to address this complaint and were emboldened to “further discriminate against and to retaliate against” Abrahams in response.
A number of other instances, from targeted harassment on the WWE’s slack channel, to further discriminatory scripts, were listed in the court documents.
“The totality of these acts demonstrates a pattern of discrimination intentionally perpetrated by the WWE management and executive officers,” the court documents allege.
Abrahams, according to the documents, is seeking a judgment that the conduct of the defendants’ violated state law in addition to compensatory and punitive damages.
The WWE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
