Report: Dallas Mavericks' Workplace unsafe for female employees
What's the story?
The Dallas Mavericks’ office environment has been alleged to be unsafe for female employees.
In case you didn't know...
The accused Former Mavericks’ team president Terdema Ussery was investigated for inappropriate behavior in 1998, but he retained his job and apparently continued to harass female employees.
The heart of the matter...
After several interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, Jon Wertheim and Jessica Luther of Sports Illustrated reported that the Mavericks office had “a corporate culture rife with misogyny and predatory sexual behavior.”
Majority of the complaints are against Teredema Ussery. The current owner Mark Cuban was not accused of any kind of harassment but also had no knowledge of the extent of the problems in his organization.
“This is all new to me,” Cuban told Wertheim and Luther. “The only awareness I have Is because I heard you guys were looking into some things…. Based off of what I’ve read here, we just fired out HR person. I don’t have any tolerance for what I’ve read. It’s wrong. It’s abhorrent. It’s not a situation we condone.
The Mavericks responded to the report with an official statement before it was published:
“The Mavericks organization takes these allegations extremely seriously. Yesterday we notified the league office and immediately hired outside counsel to conduct a thorough and independent investigation. The investigation will focus on the specific allegations related to this former employee and will look more broadly at our company’s workplace practices and policies. In addition, an employee whose job was to receive and investigate such complaints and report them accurately and fully has been suspended pending the conclusion of our investigation. There is no room for such conduct in the Mavericks’ workplace-or any workplace.”
The NBA released an official statement on Tuesday via Dan Devine of Yahoo Sports:
What's next?
The team has reported that they will be implementing all measures and steps to improve the current workplace environment and will provide all the support required to the affected employees.
Author's take
It is very sad to hear that such a work environment existed and women were harassed to such an extent. Drastic and harsh steps need to be taken by the Mavericks organization and it should be seen that such situation is not repeated in the future.