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White, male ‘Seal Team’ writer giving some credit to Trump for reaching discrimination settlement with CBS

April 22, 2025 | | Print Article

A settlement in a discrimination suit against CBS had a white, male writer giving some credit to President Donald Trump’s stance against DEI.

Amid attempts to merge parent company Paramount with Skydance Media, the suit against CBS News alleging election interference wasn’t the only thorny issue that needed to be smoothed out. The corporate media company is faced with a number of discrimination suits and agreed to a settlement on one with freelance writer Brian Beneker after he alleged he’d been overlooked for a staff position on “SEAL Team” over an “illegal policy of race and sex balancing.”

“I’m happy with the way it turned out,” he told the Daily Mail as the details of the settlement without prejudice went undisclosed. “Ultimately, I wanted to work, and clearly hiring writers based on their work was no longer the way to go after these policies were implemented.”

“I was up against writers with zero experience who were promoted ahead of me based on their gender or their sexuality. Ultimately, the goal of the suit was to bring attention to that,” Beneker, who co-wrote four episodes for the show, said.

Though he brought the suit with the help of America First Legal nearly a year before Trump’s return to office, the writer ruled out the possibility of the GOP leader having had influence on the case.

“I filed this … more than a year ago before Trump came into office, but did that influence the outcome. I think [the DEI policies] were political to begin with, which has obviously changed since President Trump took office,” he explained to the Mail. “There have been plenty of lawsuits filed after mine, so did the pressure cause it? I think it’s the combination of both.”

AFL brought the suit against CBS on behalf of Beneker in February 2024 and alleged that he was denied opportunities after the implementation of an “illegal policy of race and sex balancing” resulted in opportunities being given to less experienced “women who were black or LGBTQ” instead of him.

At the time of the suit, AFL founder Stephen Miller, now Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff, said, “America First Legal is truly proud to file this landmark lawsuit against CBS as we continue our battle to defeat DEI, stop corporate bigotry, and excise the poison of race discrimination from American workplaces.”

“CBS appears to have carried out an egregious scheme of flagrant discrimination against white and male employees in direct violation of federal civil rights law,” he went on. “We are demanding full, complete, and total justice for our client and will vigorously pursue every lawful means to hold CBS liable for its egregious misconduct. Endemic corporate bigotry in America must be ended.”

In her dismissal of the case that found both parties responsible for their own legal fees, U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang stated in part, “Having considered the Parties’ Joint Stipulation for Dismissal with Prejudice, the files and records of this action, and all other matters properly submitted to the Court, and good cause appearing therefor, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Parties’ Joint Stipulation for Dismissal with Prejudice is GRANTED.”

AFL also brought suit in July 2024 on behalf of Emmy Award-winning CBS anchor Jeff Vaughn, who contended that he had been replaced by “a younger, minority news anchor in 2022.”

Having kicked off his administration with efforts to eliminate DEI from the federal government and elsewhere, Trump has also maintained his calls for CBS News to lose its broadcasting license over allegedly “fraudulent, beyond recognition, reporting” after a recent edition of “60 Minutes” appeared to deliberately counter the administration’s efforts in Ukraine and Greenland.

As for the settlement, Beneker found no fault in the showrunners and said, “In the end, I don’t blame or hold anything against anyone who worked on the show. They were all just following the network’s policies.”

“We will see what the fallout will be. But what I would like networks to consider is the writers’ experience and work. The writers should at least have to prove themselves on the page before you consider hiring them,” he went on and added, “Look, there are plenty of female writers who are better than me, and there are minority writers who are better. I’m not saying don’t hire them. But when you hire someone whose only experience is that one show over someone with more experience, that’s just not right. It’s all been based on the fact that they checked one of ‘the [DEI] boxes.'”

Kevin Haggerty
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