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AT&T confirmed on Tuesday that it has fired company president Aaron Slator, who is currently immersed in a $100 million racial discrimination case, The Huffington Post reports.
Slator, head of the company’s content and advertising department, allegedly used his work phone to send out racially insensitive images. According to International Business Times, one of the photos found on Slator’s phone featured an African child dancing with the caption, “It’s Friday N*****s.” The AT&T president reportedly referred to the meme as an “oldie but a goodie.”
The photos were found by an assistant who was instructed to transfer Slator’s phone data into a new device.
A lawsuit was filed against Slator by Knoyme King, a 50-year-old Black female employee. “Slator harbors obvious and deep-seated racial animus toward African Americans,” the lawsuit said. “Slator’s decisions regarding hiring, firing, promotions and raises are infected by his racism.”
King, who spent 30 years building her career at AT&T, asserts that she was hindered because the company favored less-qualified, “non-African-American” employees.
According to the lawsuit, AT&T turned a blind eye to discriminatory practices within the company:
“The appropriate reaction – the morally responsible and legally required one – would have been for AT&T to take steps to remedy this past, and to prevent future, racism by its top television content executive,…
“AT&T did not do this. Instead, AT&T’s engaged in an illegal cover-up, to ensure that its racism remained hidden-even at the expense of long-term, loyal African American employees.”
In response, AT&T kicked Slator off his presidential pedestal, saying, “There is no place for demeaning behavior within AT&T, and we regret the action was not taken earlier.”
King’s lawyer, Louis Miller, said this case is more than just one image and one executive. It’s a problem that permeates the telecommunications giant as a whole: “These images and issues were reported a year and a half ago, and the company swept them under the rug,” he said.
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, board member Joyce Roche, and other executives are also named as defendants in the suit.
