Kate Merrill Lawsuit: WBZ Discrimination Claims and Ruling

The Kate Merrill lawsuit is a $4 million federal discrimination case filed in August 2025 by the longtime WBZ-TV morning anchor against the Boston station, CBS, Paramount Global, and three individual defendants, alleging she was demoted and pushed out because she is white and female. In May 2026, a federal judge dismissed her gender discrimination, defamation, and tortious interference claims but allowed her race discrimination and failure-to-investigate counts to move forward.¹

The case, Dunham v. WBZ-TV et al. (No. 1:25-cv-12195), is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Merrill had anchored WBZ This Morning for roughly seven years and worked at the station since 2004.²

What Merrill Says Happened at WBZ

According to her complaint, tension began in early 2024 with two incidents involving meteorologist Jason Mikell. On February 22, 2024, Mikell allegedly made an on-air sexual innuendo suggesting Merrill and her co-anchor had engaged in sexual relations at a gazebo. Merrill says her executive producer reported the comment and gave the videotape to News Director Gerardo Lopez, but that Mikell was never disciplined.³

On April 3, 2024, Merrill privately texted Mikell during a commercial break to correct his pronunciation of “Concord.” She says Mikell then confronted her on the studio floor, yelling in what she described as an aggressive manner. When she raised his behavior with management, the complaint says, Paramount Vice President of Employee Relations Michael Roderick instead told her that she was under investigation, based on complaints from Mikell and anchor Courtney Cole accusing her of racial bias.⁴

The conduct the investigation treated as microaggressions or unconscious bias included telling Mikell he would “find his people” in Boston (which Merrill says meant build a community of friends), on-air banter about a “Do Your Job” garbage collector segment, giving Mikell requested feedback on pronouncing Massachusetts town names, not asking colleagues about their weekends, and suggesting to Cole, who is Black, that Nashville could be a good career move because Merrill herself had thrived there. Merrill contends each interaction was benign and that Roderick declined to interview colleagues of color who could speak to her character.³

The Demotion and Departure

On May 17, 2024, Roderick told Merrill the investigation concluded she had engaged in microaggressions and created an unwelcoming environment. She received a written warning and was ordered into unconscious bias training. WBZ President and General Manager Justin Draper then moved her from weekday mornings to weekend nights. Merrill says Draper announced the reassignment publicly to staff in a way she found humiliating, a practice she alleges was not used when male anchors were reassigned.⁵

Merrill submitted what she called a “constructive discharge resignation” on May 24, 2024, and her biography was taken down from the WBZ website.⁶ A non-compete clause in her contract kept her off the air until at least June 2025, a stretch she has described as career-ending.⁵

What the Lawsuit Claims

Merrill filed suit on August 5, 2025, seeking $4 million and citing lost income and reputational harm. She named seven defendants: WBZ-TV, CBS, and Paramount Global as corporate defendants, and Draper, Roderick, Mikell, and Cole individually.⁷

The original complaint asserted seven counts:

Race discrimination under Title VII and the Massachusetts Fair Employment Practices Act.
Gender discrimination under Title VII and the Massachusetts Fair Employment Practices Act.
Failure to investigate under the Massachusetts Fair Employment Practices Act.
Defamation against Draper, WBZ, CBS, and Paramount.
Tortious interference against Draper, Roderick, Mikell, and Cole.
Failure to pay wages under Massachusetts law.

The race discrimination theory sits at the center. Merrill alleges that WBZ leadership, including CBS Stations President Adrienne Roark and Draper, pursued a DEI agenda that favored non-white employees over more senior white staff. Her complaint points to the 2022 replacement of white news director Jessi Miller and the hiring or promotion of Mikell and Cole as evidence.³ The gender claim rested on the allegation that male employees who behaved similarly, or worse, were not disciplined or publicly demoted.

Two counts fell away before the court ruled. In October 2025, Merrill voluntarily dismissed all claims against Cole with prejudice.⁸ In November 2025, after WBZ paid her for 20 days of accrued unused vacation, she dropped the unpaid wages count.⁹

Where the Case Stands After the May 2026 Ruling

In late November 2025, attorney Mark Batten of Proskauer Rose, representing all defendants, moved to dismiss four remaining counts: gender discrimination, defamation, untimely payment of wages, and tortious interference. The defense argued Merrill’s complaint “focuses entirely on race” and does not plausibly allege gender bias, that announcing a staffing change to employees is a true statement that cannot support defamation, and that Mikell’s underlying discrimination complaint was a legally protected act. The filing also accused Merrill of trading on “demeaning and unfounded stereotypes” by suggesting people of color at the station were hired to satisfy a DEI agenda.⁴

Merrill’s opposition, filed January 16, 2026, argued the demotion’s public rollout was gendered because Draper did not announce male anchors’ reassignments the same way, and that the sequence of a “racist” investigation followed by a publicly announced demotion collectively imputed racist animus to her. Her lawyers said Mikell’s underlying complaints were “false and/or misleading” and therefore not protected activity, and alleged the corporate defendants used “quotas to advance an unlawful corporate purpose: reverse discrimination.”⁹

On May 29, 2026, U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun issued a 15-page ruling. He found Merrill had not plausibly alleged she was demoted because of her gender and dismissed the gender discrimination, defamation, and tortious interference claims, writing that she had not provided enough evidence to support them.¹⁰

The ruling narrows the case but does not end it. The defendants had not moved to dismiss Merrill’s race discrimination and failure-to-investigate counts, and those claims remain live.¹¹ No trial date has been publicly reported, and there is no public indication of settlement talks. A WBZ spokesperson said in December 2025 that the station rejects the claims and will “continue to defend the matter in court.”⁹

1
Boston Globe. Federal Judge Dismisses Key Parts of Former WBZ-TV Anchor’s Discrimination Lawsuit
2
Boston Herald. Ex-WBZ Anchor Kate Merrill Says Fairness Must Apply to Everyone
3
Boston.com. Merrill Dunham v. WBZ-TV et al., Complaint
4
Boston Herald. WBZ and Others Sued by Ex-Anchor Kate Merrill Try to Toss Claims in Reverse Discrimination Lawsuit
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BIN News. Ex-News Anchor Files $4M Lawsuit Claiming She Was Demoted for Being White
6
Boston Globe. Kate Merrill Abruptly Leaves WBZ-TV After More Than 20 Years
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Boston Herald. Former WBZ Anchor Kate Merrill Sues Boston Station, CBS for Racial and Gender Discrimination
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Boston Herald. Kate Merrill Drops Claims Against Former Colleague
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Boston.com. Former WBZ Anchor Kate Merrill Fires Back in New Court Filings Amid Discrimination Suit
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New York Sun. Federal Judge Tosses Out Key Parts of Former Boston Anchor’s Reverse Discrimination Lawsuit Against CBS
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Boston.com. WBZ Files Motion to Dismiss Most of Kate Merrill’s Discrimination Lawsuit