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WNBA star Dearica Hamby sues the league and her former team for discrimination
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Fresh off an Olympic bronze medal, basketball star Dearica Hamby has filed a federal lawsuit against the WNBA and her former team, the Las Vegas Aces.
The three-time WNBA All-Star and two-time Sixth Women of the Year winner is accusing the league and her former team of discriminating and retaliating against her while she was pregnant, culminating in her trade to the Los Angeles Sparks in January 2023.
“Defendant’s decision to trade [Hamby] was motivated by [Hamby’s] announcement that she was pregnant after signing her contract extension,” reads the 18-page complaint, filed in U.S. district court in Nevada on Monday.
Hamby’s lawyers allege that being traded caused Hamby harm, including “lost promotional and/or endorsement opportunities, relocation to a more unfavorable tax environment, and the denial of a chance to participate for a back-to-back WNBA championship.”
They are asking for compensatory and punitive damages, “to be determined at trial.”
The WNBA did not respond to NPR's request for comment, but a spokesperson for the league has told multiple media outlets that officials are "reviewing the complaint."
Aces coach Becky Hammon has denied Hamby’s allegations in the past, saying in May 2023 that the trade “came down to math and business.”
“We made the decision to move Hamby because we could get three bodies in for her one contract,” Hammon told reporters. “[Her pregnancy] was never an issue, and it was never the reason she was traded. It just wasn’t.”
The WNBA launched a formal investigation into Hamby’s discrimination claims in early 2023 — around the time that her second child was born — and concluded that the Aces had violated league rules “regarding impermissible player benefits.”
It consequently rescinded the Aces’ 2025 first-round draft pick, and also suspended Hammon for two games without pay “for violating league and team Respect in the Workplace policies.”
The Aces said in a statement at the time that they were "deeply disappointed" with the outcome of the investigation, adding that the WNBA's "determinations about Becky Hammon are inconsistent with what we know and love about her." A spokesperson for the Aces told NPR on Tuesday that it stands behind that statement and has no further comment about the ongoing litigation.
This month’s lawsuit argues that the WNBA’s response didn’t go far enough to correct the violation of Hamby’s rights or provide her with any meaningful redress. Her lawyers say the WNBA “had the power to, but did not, rescind the trade.”
“The [WNBA] did not impose adequate punishment or consequences on the [Las Vegas Aces] for the discriminatory treatment experienced by [Hamby] nor for her unlawful trade to the Los Angeles Sparks such that it would deter any future similar conduct,” the complaint says.
Hamby gave birth to her son, Legend, in March 2023 and reported to training camp for the Sparks the following month. The lawsuit says she did not miss any required time with the team as a result of her pregnancy, and went on to play in all 40 of their regular season games. At the end of the season, the Aces won their second consecutive championship, without her.
Hamby filed a discrimination claim against the WNBA and the Aces with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the fall of 2023, and the federal agency ruled in May 2024 that she had the right to sue.
Hamby’s attorneys — with the national firm HKM Employment Attorneys — said in a statement that the Aces had “exiled” Hamby for becoming pregnant and “the WNBA responded with a light tap on the wrist.”
“Every potential mother in the league is now on notice that childbirth could change their career prospects overnight,” they added. “That can’t be right in one of the most prosperous and dynamic women’s professional sports leagues in America.”
‘You’re trading me because I’m pregnant?’
Hamby has played in the WNBA since 2015, starting with the San Antonio Stars — who began operating as the Las Vegas Aces in 2018. She helped lead the Aces to their first-ever WNBA championship in the fall of 2022.
According to the lawsuit, Hamby signed a two-year contract extension with the team in the spring of 2022, which would have carried her through the 2024 playing season.
To seal the deal, the lawsuit says, the team offered Hamby additional “benefits and inducements” like an agreement to cover private school tuition costs for her daughter and allow her to occupy team-provided housing.
Less than a month after Hamby signed the contract extension, she discovered she was pregnant again. She told Hammon and other Aces staff during the summer, and publicly announced her pregnancy at their championship victory parade that fall.
Hamby’s lawyers say that once her pregnancy was public, she “experienced notable changes in the way she was treated by Las Vegas Aces staff.”
She couldn’t get a clear answer on when her daughter’s tuition would be paid, and was informed that she had to vacate team-provided housing, according to the suit.
The lawsuit also recounts a January 2023 phone call between Hammon and Hamby in which the coach allegedly questioned her commitment to the team, falsely accused her of signing her contract extension while pregnant and suggested she wasn’t taking her off-season workouts seriously. The lawsuit says Hamby, then seven months pregnant, was “working out regularly as permitted by her medical doctors."
Hammon allegedly told Hamby that no one expected her to get pregnant again, “implying that by signing the contract extension, Hamby implicitly agreed she would not get pregnant during the two-year extension period.”
Hamby’s lawyers say she twice asked, “You’re trading me because I’m pregnant?” Hammon allegedly responded, “What do you want me to do?”
According to the lawsuit, Hammon told Hamby the next day that her “time with the Aces is up,” and that she could “pick a place like Los Angeles or Atlanta.” Within a week, the team publicly announced that Hamby had been traded to the Los Angeles Sparks.
Hamby says she was punished after she spoke out
Hamby responded to the trade announcement with a public social media post expressing her gratitude and excitement, but also admitting that she was “heartbroken.”
“Being traded is a part of the business. Being lied to, bullied, manipulated and discriminated against is not,” she wrote, before outlining some of the back and forth over her pregnancy. “The unprofessional and unethical way that I have been treated has been traumatizing. To be treated this way by an organization, BY WOMEN who are mothers, who have claimed to ‘be in these shoes,’ who preach family, chemistry and women’s empowerment is disappointing and leaves me sick to my stomach.”
Shortly after, the executive director of the Women's National Basketball Players Association emailed the WNBA’s general counsel on Hamby’s behalf, requesting they open an investigation, which they did.
The lawsuit alleges that the Aces “engaged in a number of retaliatory acts” against Hamby after she went public with her complaints.
Some of the examples listed including telling players and staff to cease communication with Hamby, refusing to extend her an invitation to attend the White House ceremony celebrating their first championship win, and directing video personnel at a 2023 playoff game not to show Hamby’s daughter on screen despite the fact that she was “a fan favorite.”
The lawsuit says Hamby’s trade resulted in additional tax burdens, loss of sponsorship opportunities, reputational harm and other financial losses, in addition to emotional distress and anxiety.
Terri Carmichael Jackson, the executive director of the player’s union, reiterated in a statement this week that the 2020 collective bargaining agreement granted parents protections that ensured pregnancy wouldn’t mean the end of their career. Those include paying players their full salary while on maternity leave and providing an annual child care stipend of $5,000.
“Obviously, these protections did not change the nature of this business,” she added. “Any team can trade any player for any legitimate reason or no reason at all. But that reason can never be on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, parental status or pregnancy status.”
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