Former WBZ-TV anchor Kate Merrill’s racial discrimination lawsuit rests on “demeaning and unfounded” stereotypes and should be dismissed, the defendants said in court papers.

Merrill, a mainstay on WBZ-TV for two decades, alleged in the federal complaint that she was demoted to weekend anchor because the station and corporate parents were making the on-air staff more racially diverse at the expense of white journalists like herself.

But in their first extended defense against the allegations, attorney Mark W. Batten, who represents the corporate defendants, two management employees, and meteorologist Jason Mikell, wrote that Merrill’s lawsuit should be thrown out.

Merrill’s lawsuit “repeatedly characterizes Merrill as someone who is ‘anti-racist’ — pointing to what she describes as war

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