Miami Station Sparks Backlash for Canceling Latino Show

A local NPR station in Miami, Florida is under fire for allegedly firing one of its anchors because his show was too Latino.

Carlos Frías filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the WLRN station for wrongful termination, claiming he and other Latino staff were fired after he made a complaint to Human Resources over a separate matter, per a report in Axios.

In the suit filed to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Florida Commission on Human Relations, the Sundial host said he and other Latino staff were discriminated against.

One editor allegedly told him his show was "sounding very Latino," and tracked the ethnicity of guests on Sundial, so Frías complained to HR and was fired one week later.

The alleged incident with the editor occurred in August and when Frías pressed what "sounding very Latino" meant was told he need to consider "cultural comfort zones."

Frías believed that was code for "white people were being made uncomfortable by how diverse our show was (as is our Miami home)."

Newsweek has contacted WLRN and NPR by email for comment.

In the Miami-Dade area people of Latino or Hispanic ethnicity make up 72 percent of the population according to the city's data.

"The way this was done was nothing short of punitive," Frías' attorney William Amlong told Axios.

Frias also posted to his Facebook about being reprimanded by WLRN management for reading out listener feedback, which he had deemed racist live on air. He was scolded for "airing our dirty laundry," according to the complaint.

But the matter intensified when a fellow anchor and host of NPR's flagship news show, All Things Considered, resigned in solidarity.

Catalina Garcia quit the station on Tuesday, just minutes before she was due to go to air, after station management gathered staff to discuss Frías' lawsuit.

"I felt very disappointed, very disillusioned with the way management has handled the whole situation," Garcia told The Miami Herald. "As a Latina, I felt that I needed to stand in solidarity with Carlos and the whole Sundial team because I know the truth."

According to Garcia, management had lied in the meeting and she was not happy with them justifying their actions over the Frías situation.

Newsweek has contacted Garcia and NPR by email for comment.

People rallied behind Frías on social media.

"I was one of@Carlos_Frias' 'very Latino' guests on@WLRNSundial. He generously gave me space to be unapologetically and proudly Hispanic. If @WLRN has a problem with that, it's high time we remind them they serve a community that is 70% Latino. Quizás es hora de un boicot (maybe it's time for a boycott)," wrote one person on X, formerly Twitter.

And another added: "Wtf happened? Why? It was by far my favorite program. You're an immense talent. You're specifically why I started contributing $$ to the station. WLRN: I want a gd refund!"