Taryn Asher and the Detroit station she is suing have called off their fight over the non-compete clause in her contract, clearing the 51-year-old anchor to chase a job at another newsroom while her discrimination case moves ahead. Lawyers for both sides filed a stipulated order in federal court on Monday, September 14, 2026.
The two sides agreed to drop the dispute “based upon the parties’ resolution of this issue,” the filing says. No judge ruled in her favor — this was a settlement between Asher and Fox 2 Detroit, and one a judge has still to sign off on. The broader case continues.
Asher arrived at WJBK in 2007 and collected 10 local Emmy Awards there. She took over the evening news in 2022, the year she and Roop Raj became Fox 2 Detroit’s lead anchors. Management pulled her off the air on November 21, 2025, and she never returned, though she was paid for a stretch afterward; her contract ran to June 6, 2026. The complaint she filed in June 2026 alleges gender discrimination and retaliation, accusing executives of removing her because they favored her male co-anchor.
Her attorney, Tad Roumayah, wrote in the suit: “If Asher had not been female, she would not have been treated in the same discriminatory manner.” The filing alleges she was not treated equally to co-anchor Roop Raj, that other employees were not disciplined for unacceptable behavior, and that she never engaged in unprofessional conduct.
Dueling Accounts of an Anchor’s Exit
Executives at the station tell it differently. In their own filing, they argued her firing was justified by “unprofessional behavior,” conduct they said included shouting at newsroom colleagues. Fox’s August response went further, saying she was let go over her demeanor toward colleagues and citing frequent “outbursts” and “unprofessional workplace behavior,” a guest-interview mix-up incident involving Raj, use of profanity and confronting other employees, and complaints from multiple employees.
On the non-compete, the station’s position was that the clock should have begun when her contract expired in June, not when she left the air seven months earlier. By that account, Asher was removed from the air in November 2025 and placed on paid leave, then officially fired in June 2026 — the point at which Fox 2 argues her non-compete began. The clause barred her from working in the media for six months, so under the station’s reading it would have run until early December 2026.
Those months were the entire argument. Fox 2 kept paying her for a period after November while she sat out, and the later the clause was deemed to start, the longer she stayed off a competitor’s air. Her lawyers took the question to federal court to break it. The stipulated order ends the fight without a judge deciding who was right.
“We’re pleased that this matter is now off the table,” her agent, Mort Meisner, told Deadline Detroit. He added: “Taryn has nearly 30 years of tremendous journalistic success and ratings success, and specifically at WJBK Fox 2. So we really see this as a victory because she has a family to support and this allows her the opportunity to get paid.” He also said, “Taryn does not want to leave Detroit.”
“We’ve had some discussions in both in mainstream media and non-mainstream media and we really have had to say, ‘we gotta wait’ because there was a contract in place and this matter was part of it. Now this matter is no longer part of it,” Meisner told Deadline Detroit.
About a month before the resolution, a leaked video surfaced showing Asher calling a superior a vulgar name. The recording was made in 2023 during a newscast promo shoot, and the supervisor involved was Fox 2 Executive Producer for News Traci Kryscynski, also known as Traci Ditchie, who had been locked out of her scripts. A complaint to executives prompted an internal investigation and Asher’s suspension in December 2023, but not her termination. For now, the agreement hands her what an out-of-work anchor needs most: the freedom to audition elsewhere while the litigation plays out.
A Rocky Stretch for Fox Talent
She is not the only Fox personality whose departure has become a public dispute, though the other is unfolding at a different arm of the company. Fox News Media announced on Thursday, September 3, that it had parted ways with Maria Bartiromo after 12 and a half years, thanking her and offering no explanation.
Within hours, her name was gone from the schedule. The next day “Mornings with Maria” became “Mornings with Fox Business,” while “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street” became “FBN’s Wall Street,” with rotating anchors. Jason Chaffetz took “Sunday Morning Futures” that weekend, and no permanent host has been named.
Her attorney disputes the premise. Reports that she had been fired or was no longer a Fox employee were “absolutely and unequivocally false,” Bryan Freedman said on September 4. He added: “We have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise.” Freedman has produced no proof and filed nothing; no suit has been docketed.
Why the relationship ended is something neither side has said, but one account has been partly corroborated. Bartiromo passed Fox’s internal guidance to the Trump White House, a person with knowledge of events told NPR — a text from Fox Business programming chief Ralph Giordano telling producers not to give oxygen to President Donald Trump’s July 16 primetime address, which made unproven claims that China interfered in the 2020 election. Giordano sent it the day before the speech. Peter Navarro said on Newsmax that she sent him the screenshot and that the White House called Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott about it. Sources said the leak was “not the only reason.”
The Legal Shadow Over the Network
Her programs are stitched into Fox’s costliest courtroom saga. Dominion Voting Systems sued in 2021 over on-air claims that it had rigged the 2020 election, and with the trial about to begin in 2023, Fox settled for $787.5 million. Smartmatic, which is seeking $2.7 billion, sued the same year and names her as a defendant; both sides have moved for summary judgment, the judge has not ruled and no trial date is set. Trump, who appointed her to the Kennedy Center board, called her “a total professional, and a true warrior.”
Several Fox figures tied to that coverage left before her. Lou Dobbs, who has since died, lost his job a day after Smartmatic sued in early 2021. Fox pushed out Tucker Carlson in April 2023, six days after the Dominion settlement. Jeanine Pirro, a defendant in both voting-machine cases, was named U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., in 2025.
Asher’s next move is still taking shape. She is considering work in podcasting, Meisner told the Detroit News. Roumayah told the Detroit Free Press she is “actively pursuing opportunities in the industry, and she hopes to stay in Detroit, a community she has cherished and where she has developed meaningful connections with viewers and fans over the years.” The attorney added: “She is deeply grateful for the support she has received from viewers throughout Metro Detroit.”
The immediate stakes for her are narrower. By lifting the contractual barrier that kept her from signing with a competitor, the settlement delivers a practical win to a broadcaster who spent 19 years at one Detroit station. Her discrimination and retaliation claims remain unresolved, as does the station’s insistence that it had cause.