November 6, 2025
A former white executive is suing Paramount, alleging racial and age discrimination.
A white former Paramount executive has filed a discrimination lawsuit alleging that he was fired last year during a time when the company was pushing diversity.
In a lawsuit filed in California federal court on Oct. 31, Joseph Jerome challenges Paramount’s now-defunct DEI policies, which allegedly linked staffing goals and executive compensation to diversity metrics, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Although some of these guidelines were rolled back earlier this year amid scrutiny of corporate DEI practices, Jerome alleges he was fired because he is not a person of color.
Jerome, a 30-year Paramount veteran from 1994 to 2024, most recently served as senior vice president of business and legal affairs and production counsel to Entertainment Tonight. In his lawsuit, which also alleges age discrimination, he claims he was one of three CBS Media Ventures (CMV) attorneys—all over 50 and white—terminated last year and replaced with younger, minority employees.
According to Jerome’s suit, a 25-year-old Black law school graduate and former CMV intern took his role, while his two former colleagues were replaced by younger Asian attorneys whose previous positions were eliminated in a corporate restructuring, though they have not filed lawsuits over their terminations.
The lawsuit claims that at the start of last year, CMV’s legal team was roughly balanced between white and minority attorneys. It adds that all lawyers let go in 2024 were white and over the age of 50. Jerome references a November 2023 meeting led by then-CBS News president Wendy McMahon, during which she reportedly expressed concern over the older demographics of her division’s shows and instructed staff to hire younger employees to attract younger viewers. Soon after, Jerome claims he was criticized for thinking “old” when he raised a misused legal term in a prospective deal.
The lawsuit comes after CBS Studios reached a settlement in April with a SEAL Team script coordinator who alleged that Paramount enforced illegal diversity quotas that discriminated against straight white men. The settlement coincided with a broader Hollywood reevaluation of DEI policies, with Paramount citing federal mandates that required changes in its approach to inclusion. Paramount joins other major media companies, including Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, in rolling back or rebranding DEI programs following a Trump administration executive order targeting DEI.
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