For International Women’s Day we are spotlighting a lawsuit filed last week against NFL Films. A former human resources employee said she discovered a restricted-access company database of lewd shots of women at football games. NFL Films says the reason for the compilation is to prevent their being used in film productions.
The segments of footage are reportedly filed under categories with sexualized labels indicated whether they are, for instance, close-ups of cleavage or shots of cheerleaders’ rear ends.
The company statement does not deny that the database exists, that the shots are labeled by body part or that their camera operators are creating lewd footage. Their response, issued through a spokesperson, is, “Those frames are logged as ‘sensitive’ so that they can be removed from circulation, meaning they will not be accessible to employees whose job it is to locate footage for productions.”
The claimant, Victoria Russell, alleges in her complaint that she discovered a chat room log linking timestamps from NFL Films footage of women. “The commentary associated with the timestamps included approximately 14 pages of sexually degrading remarks about women,” the complaint says.
She says in the complaint that she tried to address the “culture of sexual harassment” internally, but was “punished for daring to stand up.”
Russell is represented by Kathleen C. Riley of Vladeck, Raskin & Clark, P.C. The case, Russell v. National Football League et al., BUR-L-000147-23, was filed in the New Jersey Superior Court, Burlington County. Judge James J. Ferrelli presides.
