A federal jury awarded a veteran entertainment anchor for a New York City television station $2.4 million after finding she had proved she was fired in retaliation for complaining about racial discrimination, including her comments comparing her workplace to a plantation.
Ojinika “Oji” Obiekwe filed a civil lawsuit in January 2025, claiming that she was abruptly terminated in 2023 after years of speaking out against racial and gender-based discrimination she was experiencing in her workplace at WPIX-TV Channel 11 in New York City.
Obiekwe, a Black Nigerian, started at the station as a 22-year-old intern in 2001 and worked there for 22 years, rising through the ranks as a field producer and other producer roles covering news, politics, and sports until settling into a role as an entertainment producer.
In 2017, she was promoted to an on-camera entertainment reporter and anchor, according to her complaint filed in U.S. District Court in New York and obtained by Atlanta Black Star.
The Complaint
She said PIX 11 failed to give her the staff support she needed in line with her increased responsibilities as anchor and, unlike her white colleagues in anchor roles, also made her do the work of a segment producer and copy editor, including rewriting and fact-checking scripts.
Her lawsuit singled out two white male anchors at sister stations owned by Nexstar, a partner of its parent company — the late Sam Rubin at KTLA in Los Angeles and Dean Richards at WGN in Chicago — who she claimed had “more competent” staff than her and fewer responsibilities.
In 2020, Obiekwe began openly complaining about her work conditions, which she attributed to race and gender discrimination, including making remarks on set, in the newsroom, and in the presence of colleagues, including producers and directors who were her superiors.
The lawsuit recounted that Obiekwe publicly told co-workers that PIX 11 “might as well be a plantation;” “Just call me Django — but even Django was unchained;” and regarding the disproportionate amount of work she was expected to do, “All that’s left for me to do at this point is pick cotton.”
Such comments did not go over well with management, who called them “inflammatory” and said they made her coworkers “uncomfortable,” according to Nexstar’s answer to the complaint filed in March of 2025.
In early 2021, Obiekwe said she went to Nexstar Human Resources Development employee Courtney Williams to formally complain about the lack of support and the disparate treatment in comparison with white male peers, including being paid less to do more work.
Williams was sympathetic, but the company never investigated her complaints, Obiekwe claimed.
Complaints Go Nowhere
In August of 2021, she was called into a meeting with Williams and Nicole Tindiglia, the station’s news director, and an HR employee. They told her that she was receiving fair market pay.
Obiekwe’s complaint says she let management know verbally and through repeated emails over the next year that they had “missed the point” by focusing on pay disparity instead of her main concern, the preferential treatment of her white male colleagues in terms of staff support and workload.
In the summer of 2022, with her complaints still not “rectified,” Obiekwe said she again compared her workplace to a “plantation” and said that her Nigerian “ancestors” would be “disappointed in me for agreeing to go through what I’m going through now, after all they went through.” Obiekwe immigrated to the United States at age 17.
She said Tindiglia called her into her office and “challenged her sincerity” in comparing her situation to slavery, stating that when people think of slavery, they think of “whips and chains.” Tindiglia allegedly told Obiekwe that her comments were inappropriate and “making people uncomfortable.”
Obiekwe said she was blunt in response and repeated that her ancestors would be disappointed, that she did feel like a “slave,” and that she was experiencing racial discrimination.
The lawsuit said her concerns went unresolved and that the broadcaster continued to impose unreasonable work demands on her over the next few months, while PIX11 began a retaliatory campaign to “impugn” her job performance, “concocting” a series of complaints indicating she was not doing her job.
Obiekwe contended that she “debunked” those “demonstrably false” assertions in meetings and discussions with other Nexstar and PIX11 executives in the latter part of 2022, while continuing to object to the discrimination she was experiencing.
The Termination
On January 31, 2023, Obiekwe was called to a meeting with Tindiglia, Williams, and her Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) union representative and was handed a termination letter.
“The stated reasons given were an alleged ‘failure to perform job duties’ and ‘insubordination,” the lawsuit said.
In response, Obiekwe said she replied, “A Black woman speaks up, and she’s insubordinate. Got it.”
After her union pressed Nexstar to provide proof that Obiekwe had failed to do her job duties, the complaint said, PIX11 “changed course and announced that it had simply decided not to renew [her] employment contract,” which had expired on Dec. 31, 2022, and had been extended in January for 30 days pending renewal.
The lawsuit cited “a causal connection” between Obiekwe’s participation in protected activity (voicing complaints about racial discrimination) and her termination and subsequent contract non-renewal, deeming it retaliation in violation of federal civil rights law.
She sought a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages for the financial and emotional harm done to her by the company.
‘Baseless’ Lawsuit
In their answer, WPIX and Nexstar Media Group called Obiekwe’s lawsuit “baseless” and an attempt to undo “the consequences of her own poor performance while working at WPIX.”
They said the decision to fire her, which “had absolutely nothing to do with Plaintiff’s race or purported protected activity,” occurred after many months of counseling by News Director Tindiglia, Nexstar’s VP of Human Resources Williams (“who is a Black female”), and General Manager Chris McDonnell that Obiekwe “needed to improve her job performance, including by getting out of the studio as an Entertainment Reporter and attending red carpet events, Broadway shows, or new restaurants and clubs.”
“WPIX encouraged Plaintiff to think outside the box and recognize that she was a reporter with a mandate to help the station meet its goals and ratings. Plaintiff simply chose not to go to such events, claiming that she wanted to be in the studio and do interviews there.”
“The defendants further said Obiekwe “refused to meet with WPIX management when asked to do so, and they literally would have to chase her to have conversations with them. After repeated efforts to get Plaintiff to perform her job without any success, WPIX was faced with no choice but to not renew her contract.”
They called her allegations of retaliation “wholly contrived” and said her complaints of alleged discrimination “were thoroughly investigated and unsubstantiated.”
‘Legitimate, Non-Retaliatory Reasons’
The station and Nexstar argued that her claim that two white male entertainment anchors in Los Angeles and Chicago were paid more than her and given more support did not recognize that “these two individuals were not similarly situated to her: they worked for different television stations, in different markets, in different roles, and most importantly, their pay was set by local management at those stations.”
While Obiekwe “complained that she had to re-write and print her scripts written by her producers, order her own car service, and that she was overworked and underpaid,” the answer said, “her expectations of what she should be doing in her role were not in line with the reality of being an Entertainment Reporter at WPIX.”
It also called her comments comparing her workplace to a plantation and slavery “unprofessional and unprotected conduct” that “made her co-workers uncomfortable.”
Obiekwe’s employment ended for “legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons,” the defendants concluded.
The Verdict
During the week-long trial in a federal courthouse in New York City in July, Obiekwe and other current and former Nexstar employees testified about the workplace conditions at WPIX.
On July 21, an eight-member jury found that Obiekwe had proven that, were it not for her complaints of race discrimination before her termination, WPIX would not have fired her.
After checking that box on the verdict form, the jurors then awarded Obiekwe $1.137 million in compensatory damages for pain, suffering, or emotional distress resulting from the termination, and $1.28 million in punitive damages.
“No one should have to choose between their livelihood and speaking up about what they believe is wrong. I did,” Obiekwe said in a statement after the verdict. “While this victory is deeply personal, I hope it reaches far beyond me. … This is for everyone who has ever questioned whether speaking up was worth the risk or wondered if anyone would believe them.”
Her attorneys, Erica Abrams and Andrew G. Celli, called the verdict “the culmination of an ugly, years-long campaign to retaliate against [Obiekwe] and destroy her professional reputation, all because she dared to call out racial discrimination in her workplace. … Eight jurors heard the evidence and vindicated our client.”
PIX11 and Nexstar have not said whether they will appeal. The station has not commented publicly on the verdict.
