Diane Silberstein, a former publisher and senior vice president for the New Yorker magazine filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that her boss fired her because she was pregnant.
Silberstein says that New Yorker president Thomas Florio actively discouraged her from taking other job offers while she was publisher. When he found out she was pregnant, he cut her salary almost in half, saying that she could either accept it or take a “severance package” instead. Silberstein also claims that Florio told her on many different occasions that she would be unable to handle her work and home duties. Silberstein took the pay cut and Florio again discouraged her from taking other job offers, Silberstein said. Several weeks later, she learned through an advertising industry newsletter that she had been fired.
Florio and the New Yorker deny the charges and claim that the mostly woman-run magazine has no history of discriminating against pregnant women and mothers.
