Image: the suns gorilla mascot waving a suns flag on the court
The Suns are facing a second discrimination lawsuit filed by a client of attorney Sheree Wright.
In late October of 2023, Jason Cope began circulating a draft of an email among his colleagues. An employee of the Phoenix Suns, Cope had worked in the team's SunsVision department since 2009, helping to run the in-game programming that appears on the big video boards at PHX Arena. For much of that time, Cope said, neither he nor many of his longtime coworkers had received raises.
So Cope drafted an email to bring the issue to management's attention and then sought buy-in from others in his department. Not enough people signed on, so he never sent the email to his bosses. But Cope believes Suns management caught wind. A few weeks later, Cope and many other SunsVision employees received an email informing them that to continue working, they would need to sign new agreements that classified them as independent contractors. As a part-time employee with benefits, Cope would lose his benefits and the ability to earn overtime.
"It didn’t sit right with me," Cope said. "I was the last person to sign a contract because I was so against it.”
Cope believes his unsent email and the employment status change are connected. Additionally, he said that the roughly half-dozen people transferred to contractor status are all middle-aged or older, while the team has hired younger employees on a full-time basis. Despite the change, he said his job duties and pay remain the same, leading him to believe that the Suns have discriminated against him and others because of his age. Cope is 46, and he notes that benefits for older employees tend to cost companies more to provide.
Last week, Cope made those allegations in a federal lawsuit against the Suns, who he says retaliated against him, treated him worse based on his age, and forced him and his coworkers to work in a rat-infested parking garage. Cope is seeking damages — his lawsuit does not specify an amount — as well as reinstatement to his previous position and declaratory relief that his contractor agreement is null and void.
Filed on March 12, Cope's lawsuit is the latest in a string of workplace controversies with the Suns. In 2022, ESPN reported widespread allegations of racism and misogyny within the Suns under former owner Robert Sarver, who was ultimately forced to sell the team as a result. Current owner Mat Ishbia bought the team later that year, though Cope said the environment has not changed. Last November, Andrea Trischan — the team's former manager of diversity, equity and inclusion, whose 10-month tenure bridged the Sarver and Ishbia eras — sued the team for racial discrimination and retaliation.
Cope and Trischan have the same attorney — Sheree Wright of IBF Law. Cope said he doesn't know Trischan but reached out to Wright after Trischan went public with her allegations last summer. When asked for a response to Cope's lawsuit, the Suns sent Phoenix New Times a statement attacking Wright, who is currently on probation with the State Bar of Arizona.
"This is yet another attempt by attorney Sheree Wright to engineer a lawsuit using false claims, and this time it is based on age discrimination," wrote Stacey Mitch, the senior vice president of communications for the Suns and the Mercury. "Ms. Wright is currently on probation by the Supreme Court of Arizona for unethical practices. This clearly defines her character, and we will not be extorted by her shameful scheme."
Cope and Wright granted an interview to New Times earlier this week, after which New Times sent a second email to Mitch with specific questions about Cope's allegations. Mitch responded with the same statement, with an additional paragraph.
"These assertions are false, and we will have no further comment in the press," the new statement concluded. "It’s clear the Phoenix New Times has been coordinating with Ms. Wright for this story. We will refute accordingly in our response to the court.”New Times learned of the lawsuit after it had been filed through means that are not related to Wright or her clients and requested initial comment from Wright and the Suns at the same time. Wright offered an interview; the Suns did not.
click to enlarge a man smiling in an arena
Jason Cope is suing the Phoenix Suns for age discrimination and retaliation, among other claims.
Courtesy of Jason Cope
What the lawsuit says
At the crux of Cope's lawsuit is the contractor agreement he said he felt forced to sign.
According to his complaint, his supervisor sent him and others in his department an email with the agreement on Nov. 9, 2023. According to an excerpt included in the suit, the email noted that "your experience scheduling and working games should not change" but that signing the agreement would be required before anyone could work another game. The next Suns home game was a day later, Nov. 10.
Cope said some employees refused to sign the agreement and left the team, while others signed immediately. Cope said he ultimately signed it because "I had no choice. I've been here since 2009." The contract left him "without the legal rights and benefits he had previously enjoyed as an employee," per the complaint, while the team maintained control over every other aspect of his work. Cope said he still has a company email and phone number.
Cope said "about eight" SunsVision employees were switched to contractor status, some of whom "had been with that company since the '90s." He added that some have disabilities and some are nearing retirement age. Meanwhile, Cope's complaint says the team "hired younger employees to perform the same duties" as Cope while he "was denied employment benefits solely due to his age."
"What’s the difference between my client, Jason — and the other individuals who are older — and the younger ones?" Wright said in an interview. "Lower pay."
In August 2024, Cope made a complaint to the team's human resources department that he said led to his own suspension. During an interaction with a younger, full-time employee, Cope's complaint said, the employee said, "Jesus fucking Christ, do you have to be white and 40 to get any respect in this place?" Cope was offended by the comment and reported it to his supervisor.
Not long after, Cope was told to come to the stadium for a meeting with his boss and Joy Harper, who heads HR for the franchise. "She began to say that she was doing ‘fact-finding’ and she had found that I was a disgruntled employee and that nobody on my crew liked me or wanted to work with me," Cope said. Cope's complaint says Harper characterized Cope as "disgruntled about the conversion" to contractor status.
Harper's suggestion put him on the defensive, Cope said, and he asked why he was required to be at HR meetings if he was no longer considered an employee. His complaint says no meaningful attempt was made to address the comment he reported and that he was instead given a three-month suspension — "an action that was clearly motivated by (Cope's) protected activity in reporting discriminatory behavior," the complaint says.
Cope said he assumed he'd never work for the Suns again. "I left there crying," he said. He has since continued to work Suns games and other events at the arena.
Cope's complaint also alleges that the Suns subjected him and others — both employees and contractors — to unsafe working conditions by failing to curb a rat infestation. Most recently, the rats were an issue in his department's current work area, which is now located in the parking structure below the arena, where employees are forced to use portable toilets. Wright's firm shared photos with Phoenix New Times that Cope said he took of dead rats in traps and rat feces on the ground.
Cope said the rats have now migrated to another part of the stadium. "There's still the leftover poop," he said. "But it doesn't smell like ammonia anymore."
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A photo Jason Cope says is of a dead rat in his work area in a parking garage beneath PHX Arena.
Courtesy of IBF Law Group
Sheree Wright background
The Suns' statement about Cope's lawsuit focused more on Wright, whose run-ins with the state bar were enumerated in a December article in the Arizona Republic.
In January 2022, the Arizona Supreme Court gave her a year of probation for trying to get a family court judge removed from a case over alleged racial bias "without a good faith basis in law or fact." In August 2024, she was given two years of probation over numerous ethical violations in dealings with three different clients, including failing to communicate with clients, failing to comply with a court order and disclosing confidential information about a past client.
Wright admitted the violations when she accepted the probation at the time, though she now says she disputes them. She has spoken at recent meetings of the bar's board of governors and Discipline System Oversight Committee about discrimination in attorney discipline and she said she is supporting an effort by the conservative lawmakers to strip the state bar of regulatory power.
Wright pointed to an Arizona State University survey included in a recent issue of Arizona Attorney Magazine — an official state bar publication — that found 45% of respondents felt there is bias in the disciplinary system. The most commonly identified biases were against the type of law practiced and the size of a law firm.
"I do believe that the State Bar of Arizona has discriminated against attorneys of color — it’s very well-known — individuals who own small law firms, and individuals who are Republican," said Wright, who is Black.
When reached for comment, the state bar said it "categorically denies Ms. Wright’s assertions, which are without substantiation. Her statements concerning the State Bar are not unlike the unsubstantiated claims made about a Superior Court judge that resulted in her being admonished and placed on probation."
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Sheree Wright is representing two people who have filed discrimination suits against the Phoenix Suns.
Courtesy of IBF Law Group
One of the cases that drew a bar complaint and discipline for Wright involved state Sen. Catherine Miranda. On March 3, Miranda wrote a letter to the bar lauding Wright's representation and suggesting the bar punished her unjustly. "Wright has courageously spoken out against systemic racial bias within the State Bar of Arizona," Miranda wrote, "and it is highly troubling that her vocal advocacy appears to have been met with retaliatory actions."
Joel F. England, the CEO and executive director of the state bar, responded to Miranda in a March 6 letter, writing that her "assertions that there is a lack of fairness or some other disparity in this process is entirely unfounded."
Cope said Wright explained her issues with the state bar to him and that he is comfortable with her representation. Wright said she thinks the Suns are focusing on her to distract from the underlying claims brought by Cope and Trischan.
“I know what they’re coming with," Wright said when read the statement from the Suns. "They’re going to say, ‘She’s just a mess. She goes around starting problems all the time. This is what she does.’"
Wright said she has two other clients who are in the process of preparing lawsuits against the Suns and said many others have reached out but have been directed to other firms. "At this point, my firm is the Phoenix Suns' HR," she said. Florida-based attorney Cortney Walters is also representing Cope and Trischan in their cases, partly to help handle the load and to insulate them from attacks on Wright, which she expects to continue when future lawsuits are filed.
"They’re going to run out of excuses," IBF law clerk Divine Holmes said. "They’re going to keep attacking Sheree."
Sarver was forced to sell the Suns in an attempt to fix the toxic culture that he fostered, but Wright said she thinks the Ishbia-run Suns are so wary of bad press that they retaliate against anyone who reports discrimination. Cope is still working games and said little has changed for people who work there.
"The internal joke now," he said, "is ‘Miss the Sarver days!’"