PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 The former chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer for Philadelphia has sued the city for discrimination and harassment.<\/p>\n
Brandee Anderson accused the Parker administration of engaging in a “sustained effort” to suppress DEI activity, including directives to \u201cstand down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anderson claimed in the lawsuit that Mayor Cherelle Parker told her that she did not care about Anderson’s “DEI ideology,” and instead only cared about minority business.<\/p>\n
She said she was fired after reporting an instance of sexual harassment involving her supervisor, then-Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Dailey.<\/p>\n
In the lawsuit, Anderson said that Tyrell Brown, director of LGBTQ+ Affairs at the time, told her Dailey had sent a sexual image through a dating app called Sniffies on July 2, 2025. She then reported the incident to Human Resources.<\/p>\n
Anderson said members of the administration retaliated against her, and that they specifically cited the HR investigation as the reason she was removed from a public speaking panel set for July 15, 2025. She was fired on July 22, 2025.<\/p>\n
According to Anderson\u2019s termination letter, the decision was due to her \u201crecent conduct, judgment lapses, and confirmed violations of the City\u2019s Sexual Harassment Policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit notes that Anderson, who is a Black woman, was terminated, while Dailey, a white man, was “transferred laterally” with no loss of compensation.<\/p>\n
Anderson said that after her firing, members of the Parker administration disparaged her in interviews with the Inquirer and radio station WDAS 105.3 FM.<\/p>\n
The Parker administration has declined to comment on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 The former chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer for Philadelphia has sued the city…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[23273,2676,19077,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-255488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-dei","tag-lawsuit","tag-mayor-cherelle-parker","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}