Culture of WME Gender Discrimination Extends to Female Vice President at PBR

Denver, CO -- (ReleaseWire) -- 01/23/2018 --"We all have lived too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men," said Oprah Winfrey at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards. "For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dare to speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up," exclaimed Oprah.

#TimesUp for senior management at William Morris Endeavor's tacit acceptance of a culture of gender, sexual and racial discrimination at WME and the Professional Bull Riders. #TimesUp for PBR CEO Sean Gleason and COO Rodd Granger, who, instead of correcting irrefutable gender pay discrimination for African-American PBR Vice President Tanique Wright, retaliated by firing her for complaining and speaking out against unfair treatment at the company. After receiving a right-to-sue letter from the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC), Wright is pursuing a lawsuit against the company.

WME has been a recent target of public scrutiny for arranging for actor Mark Wahlberg to be paid $1.5 million dollars for reshooting scenes for the new drama "All the Money in the World" while arranging for the other female co-star, four-time Academy Award-nominee Michelle Williams to be paid under under $1000 dollars for reshooting her scenes in the movie. Additionally, as reported on December 18, 2017 by Time magazine, WME agent Adam Venit was permitted to continue working at WME after sexually assaulting actor Terry Crews, who has also filed a lawsuit against the company.

A disappointed Wright recently sent a letter to WME executives Ariel Emanuel and Patrick Whiteshell asking for their help but has yet to receive a response. "I want you to know that I have never felt such pain and disappointment as I have felt over the last couple of years while working at WME/PBR," Wright wrote. "I never thought that as an African-American woman that racism and humiliation were even possible at this level but I was wrong," added Wright. "I thought that WME was a family of people that cared about how their employees were treated," lamented Wright. "The hostile environment I worked in everyday became more painful as the abuse continued to happen but I came to work everyday and still did my job.

Wright joins #WomensMarch2018 where hundreds of thousands of women and others supporting them, took to the streets in major cities on across the United States to protest and decry companies like WME and PBR who enable a culture sexual assault, gender pay discrimination and retaliation against women like Wright who speak out against unfair treatment.

Wright hopes that Emanuel, who, in light of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, will honor an email he sent to all WME employees where he said he would not tolerate mistreatment of women at WME and encouraged victims like Wright to contact him concerning such matters. Wright has yet to hear from Emanuel.

When A Just Cause notified WME of its intention of exposing Wright's allegations of gender discrimination and retaliation, WME management threatened to take action further action against Wright and AJC. "These are the same type of nefarious tactics used by Harvey Weinstein to intimidate his accusers from speaking," says Lamont Banks, Executive Director of A Just Cause. "But we will not be deterred by WME's corporate bullying and will support Ms. Wright and other women's fight against sexual abuse and gender discrimination," adds Banks. "I ask all women and supporters from the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements to raise their voices against WME on behalf of Tanique Wright by using the hashtag #Speak4Tanique," concludes Banks.

To hear more about the Tanique Wright story tune into A Just Cause's BlogTalk radio show at http://www.ajcradio.com on Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at 8pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) or contact AJC directly on their website or by phone.