A longtime CBS Boston anchor who mysteriously disappeared from the air last year has sued her ex-station, network, its parent company, and two black former colleagues – for what she says was a ‘DEI’ plan to purge white staffers.
Beloved morning host Kate Merrill filed the suit in US District Court on Tuesday. She left the station in May 2024 after being accused of racism – just weeks after she complained to bosses about an alleged on-air comment from a colleague that she said suggested she had slept with a co-anchor in a gazebo.
The suit names CBS, Paramount, Merrill’s then-general manager Justin Draper, and the then-VP of employee relations at Paramount, Michael Roderick, as defendants.
The latter launched an internal probe into Merrill last spring shortly before she resigned, after she was accused of ‘microaggressions’ and unconscious bias by two recently hired black colleagues, meteorologist Jason Mikell and anchor Courtney Cole.
The investigation saw Merrill slapped with a ‘written warning’ after it found her alleged behavior ‘was grounded in microaggressions or unconscious bias and created a very unwelcoming work environment.’