A judge has ordered WPIX-TV, also known as PIX 11, to pay former anchor Ojinika Obiekwe more than $2 million following a trial that found the station liable in a discrimination lawsuit. Obiekwe, who was employed by the Nexstar-owned station for 22 years, alleged she was terminated in 2023 after raising concerns about racial discrimination within the newsroom.

Following a week-long trial, a judge ruled in Obiekwe's favor on Tuesday, awarding her $1,137,000 in compensatory damages for pain, suffering, and emotional distress, and an additional $1,280,000 in punitive damages, according to court documents.

"I feel great! I'm grateful to God," Obiekwe stated after the ruling. "I thank God for leading me to my lawyers because there’s no way I could’ve done this without them."

Obiekwe filed her lawsuit last year, asserting that after her promotion to entertainment anchor in 2017, she was assigned a workload comparable to multiple employees, including segment producer and copy editor duties. The lawsuit contended that she described this workload as akin to "slavery" and "working on a plantation," and that white male counterparts at sister stations performed less work with more resources.

WPIX-TV denied Obiekwe's claims, accusing her in a legal response of filing a "baseless lawsuit to undo the consequences of her own poor performance."

Obiekwe's attorney, Eric Abrams, described the case as challenging and expressed pride in the jury's verdict. "The fact that we won, and the fact that we won big is a huge testament to who Oji is," Abrams said. "The jury understood that her side of the story was the right side of the story, when PIX and Nexstar never did… No one deserves the vindication more than her."

Obiekwe indicated that her victory is for others she has observed being mistreated. "It's for every single person I've watched get wronged at PIX 11," she said. Narmeen Choudhury, a former PIX 11 reporter who stated she quit due to Islamophobia, shared her support on social media, calling Obiekwe's win a "collective win for so many others wronged by the mismanagement of that newsroom."

"You can’t fire people because they’re speaking up against discrimination," Obiekwe added. "You can’t fire people because you don’t like them… I’m not there to be liked. I was there to do a job… I did my job."

A representative for PIX 11 declined to comment on the ruling.