'SEAL Team' Scribe Sues CBS for Racial Hiring Quotas

CBS Studios and parent company Paramount are facing legal action over accusations of implementing diversity quotas that discriminate against straight white men.

Brian Beneker, a script coordinator for "SEAL Team," filed a lawsuit in California federal court alleging that he was consistently denied a staff writer position after the adoption of an "illegal policy of race and sex balancing," according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

This policy, according to Beneker, favored the hiring of "less qualified applicants who were members of more preferred groups," including minorities, LGBTQ individuals, and women.

CBS declined to comment to The Hollywood Reporter. 

Beneker turned to the America First Legal Foundation for legal representation. This conservative group, led by Stephen Miller, a former Trump administration policy adviser, filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against companies including Morgan Stanley, Starbucks, and McDonald's. These complaints claim that the companies' diversity efforts and hiring practices break civil rights laws.

In his complaint, Beneker, who has been working as a script coordinator for CBS' "SEAL Team" since 2017 and has also contributed as a freelance scriptwriter for some episodes, outlines instances where he claims he was disregarded for staff writing positions.

He claims that Black or female candidates, whom he alleges were less experienced and often lacked writing credits, were chosen over him.

When he inquired why a Black writer was chosen over him in 2019, Beneker claims the showrunner informed him that CBS aimed to fulfill diversity quotas for its writers rooms. 

Beneker alleges that it was implied to him that he "did not check any diversity boxes" as a heterosexual white man, according to the complaint.

Since 2020, despite being told he would be considered for the next available staff writing position, Beneker asserts that CBS has hired at least six more writers, all of whom are women, according to his claim.

"During Season 6, (in approximately May of 2022), two female writer's assistants, without any writing credits, were hired as staff writers," states the complaint, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "The first of these two hires was Black. The second identified as lesbian."

The lawsuit argues CBS' hiring practices have "created a situation where heterosexual, white men need 'extra' qualifications (including military experience or previous writing credits) to be hired as staff writers when compared to their nonwhite, LGBTQ, or female peers."

The complaint alleges that CBS enforces racial quotas, with the network's CEO stating in a 2022 interview that he aimed for all primetime series' writers' rooms to include at least 40% minorities for the 2021-22 season; 17 of 21 shows reportedly met or surpassed that target.

For the 2022-23 broadcast season, the network announced in 2020 that half of all writers must be nonwhite as part of an initiative to "more accurately reflect diversity both on-screen and behind-the-camera," The Hollywood Reporter noted.

The complaint accuses violations of two laws: the Civil Rights Act of 1866, banning racial discrimination in private contracts, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting employment discrimination based on race, religion, and sex.

It also challenges the legality of diversity programs that consider race.

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