Kanye West Will Have Hard Time Defending Recent Behavior in Court, Expert Says
Kanye West’s long list of controversies and offensive behavior will make it difficult for him to defend himself against allegations that he created a hostile work environment for Jewish employees at his company Yeezy, an expert says.
Kanye West’s behavior ‘a red flag,’ lawyer says
On Feb. 9, West appeared in a Super Bowl ad for Yeezy.com. The only item for sale at the online store was a swastika T-shirt. That “would be a red flag under normal circumstances,” employment attorney Tom Spiggle said in an email. Coming on the heels of his misogynistic and antisemitic rant on X only makes things worse.
“The fact that it happened shortly after he posted on social media ‘I’m a Nazi’ and praised Hitler leaves it pretty unambiguous,” said Spiggle, the founder of Washington, D.C.’s Spiggle Law Firm.
“While his company, Yeezy, is fairly small, it seems clear that he’s creating a hostile work environment for any Jewish employees and potentially other groups,” Spiggle went on to say. “These actions came as West has been sued by a Jewish former employee, alleging that West claimed that he was a Nazi and criticized other Jewish employees for the amount of money that they made.”
Ye’s former employee says she was targeted because she is Jewish
On Feb. 11, a former employee sued Ye and Yeezy, alleging a hostile work environment. The woman, who is Jewish, says the rapper targeted her because of her sex and religion.
“Ye waged a relentless and deliberate campaign of antisemitism and misogyny against my client. His appalling treatment of women and fixation on Nazism, evident in abusive texts where he repeatedly calls himself Hitler, expose his motives,” the anonymous woman’s attorney Carney Shegerian, of Shegerian & Associates, told CBC News.
In her complaint, the woman, who was hired as a marketing specialist and identified only as Jane Doe, says that West “carried out a calculated campaign to threaten and psychologically torment Jewish people around him.” When she complained about his behavior to her supervisor, she was fired.
Spiggle says that Ye’s current and past behavior will make it difficult for him to disprove the employee’s claims.
“If these allegations are true, this sounds like a pretty obvious hostile work environment and retaliation claim,” he said. “And it’s not the first time West has faced a lawsuit over these kinds of workplace comments, which makes it harder for him to defend his behavior in court.”
West has been sued multiple times in recent years. In April 2024, a former employee sued Yeezy and West’s private Christian school Donda Academy. Trevor Phillips alleged that West used antisemitic language and discriminated against Black employees, according to a New York Times report. In June 2024, West’s former assistant, Lauren Pisciotta, sued him for sexual harassment, breach of contract, and wrongful termination, the BBC reported.
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