Former Phoenix Suns employee Andrea Trischan is seeking $60 million in damages in a discrimination and wrongful termination complaint against the team filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Arizona attorney general’s office’s civil rights division, ESPN is reporting.
The matter is being investigated by the Arizona attorney general’s office’s civil rights division.
“Ms. Trischan filed a formal complaint … due to ongoing racial discrimination, harassment, and retaliation she experienced while employed with the Phoenix Suns,” Trischan’s attorney, Sheree Wright said in the ESPN report. “Specifically, Ms. Trischan endured overt racist comments and a hostile work environment that went unaddressed despite being reported to HR and executive leadership.”
Trischan was hired in September 2022 days after the NBA suspended then-Suns team owner Robert Sarver and fined him $10 million for “workplace misconduct and organizational deficiencies” found in the 10-month NBA investigation of his 18-year tenure as team owner.
She was hired as the team’s program manager of diversity, equity and inclusion to address issues the NBA pointed out in the Sarver investigation, but was let go less than 10 months into her position.
“A former employee who last worked for the organization in 2023 was terminated after less than 10 months due to repeated failure to perform her job duties,” Suns and Mercury senior vice president of communications, Stacey Mitch, provided The Arizona Republic. “This individual filed a baseless charge with a state agency and is now trying to use ESPN reporting from 2022, specific to previous ownership, to make egregious claims in order to support her ridiculous demand for $60 million from the Suns organization.”
Suns team owner Mat Ishbia bought the Suns and Mercury from Sarver for a record $4 billion in February 2023.
“To be clear, this individual is making false claims in an attempt to gain tens of millions of dollars,” Mitch continued in the statement. “We are confident the courts will find no merit to these claims and quickly resolve this matter. The Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury are creating a world-class organization for every employee. We will not let opportunists succeed in their attempts to manipulate the media and use years old reporting to seek financial gain.”
Trischan’s attorneys say they’re prepared to file a formal lawsuit against the Suns and anticipate doing so. She has until Nov. 13 to do so, her attorneys said in the ESPN report.
