Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire businessman Mark Cuban is at the center of a new controversy brewing at his team's arena. This past week, Michelle Newsome filed a petition that names Mark Cuban and the Mavericks organization as culprits in covering up a racist occurrence that happened in 2011.
According to USA Today, Newsome filed the petition on Thursday with the Dallas County Court. She hasn't sued yet, but is considering doing so after she discerns how her petition is handled by the organization. Her petition seeks to gain documents from the Mavericks and also to oust Cuban. Newsome is an African-American woman, who was shocked when another employee showed her a picture of a noose that was hidden in an IT closet. The noose was placed there by a contracted employee. The man who found the noose, who is also African American, provided an affidavit verifying the story. Newsome reported the noose, and it was removed by Cuban himself.
“There was nothing done and the most disheartening thing was the fact that Mr. Cuban is the one who took down the noose and discarded it," explains Newsome to Today.
"They tried to brush it under the carpet. There was no action taken by him. There was nothing that said, there was no action taken by Mr. Cuban and he didn’t say anything like that this is intolerable, that this can’t be tolerated. There was nothing at all stated saying this was wrong, this is not allowed, this is not representative of a company culture that I want to have for one of my businesses,” she continued.
Newsome was fired in March 2017, which she believes is connected with her constant complaints to HR about racial discrimination, harassment, pay inequality and bullying from her co-workers.
