FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Plaintiff Files Notice of Appeal of Dismissal of Class Action Discrimination Lawsuit Against CBS and Writers Guild
Discrimination Case Described as Landmark and Groundbreaking by Civil Rights Organization and Media
June 16, 1999 -- The Plaintiff Migdia Chinea-Varela today filed a Notice of Appeal of the Dismissal of her Class Action Discrimination and Retaliation Lawsuit against CBS and the Writers Guild of America, west. The lawsuit, which had been variously described by a Civil Rights Organization, the Campaign for a Colorblind America Legal Defense and Educational Foundation (www.equalrights.com), and the media as a Landmark and Groundbreaking case, had been dismissed by United States District Judge J. Spencer Letts' May 25, 1999 Order, on CBS and the Writers Guild's pretrial Motions to Dismiss. The appeal will now be heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after the parties have an opportunity to brief the issues on appeal, and the Plaintiff has indicated that she is willing to take the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court, if necessary, to fight the Defendants' position that "Varela does not have standing to challenge the [alleged] affirmative action program since she is a member of the protected class." The Plaintiff, Migdia Chinea-Varela, who was the founder of the Writers Guild Latino Writers Committee, had sued CBS and the Writers Guild for $138.6 Million Dollars under Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Act and under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, alleging the Defendants were running a so-called "special access" program by which all Hispanic writers were forced into trainee positions which paid only one-half of the Writers' Minimum Basic Agreement, the writers' minimum wage that CBS and the other studios had negotiated with the Writers Guild, by filing a lawsuit on December 15, 1998, in the United States District Court, as Case No. CV 98-10064 JSL. Chinea-Varela had alleged that despite the fact that she had twenty years of writing experience and credits on such well known programs as "Facts of Life," "Incredible Hulk" and "What's Happening Now," CBS automatically relegated her and other Hispanic writers to "trainee" positions that paid only half of the writers' Minimum Basic Agreement. According to the lawsuit, after complaining about and protesting the so-called "special access" program as being discriminatory, Chinea-Varela had been blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment. The complaint states that after complaining about the program, Chinea-Varela not only did not receive even a single writing offer, but did not even obtain a single "pitch meeting," the equivalent of an interview for writers.
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