POST-FOX LIFE

Gretchen Carlson to Testify Before Congress on Forced Arbitration

Teaming up with a coalition of Senate Democrats.

Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson is set to testify before Congress about forced arbitration laws—an issue near and dear to her following her firing from the network after her accusations of sexual harassment by deposed CEO Roger Ailes. In a Time magazine profile published Friday, Carlson revealed that she will testify in alliance with a coalition of Senate Democrats against forced arbitration—the clause in some employee contracts that prohibits them from suing, effectively forcing them to settle employment disputes in private arbitration. “A lot of people that I’ve heard from [about being unfairly dismissed] find themselves in the middle of either legal action or, more likely, forced arbitration,” Carlson told the magazine. “It is a huge problem. Because it’s secret. And it plays into why we think that we’ve come so far in society and we probably really haven’t—because we don’t hear about it.” Carlson was terminated by Fox News this summer, which led to her filing a lawsuit accusing Ailes of serial sexual harassment—a case that the network tried to force into private arbitration. She settled with the company for $20 million.