The allegations in a recent lawsuit that Linda M. McMahon, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be the U.S. secretary of education in his new administration, failed decades ago to prevent the sexual abuse of teenage workers when she was CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment are prompting sharply divergent reactions.
Some observers argue that the claims in the suit—that McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon, allowed a ringside announcer who was known to abuse the adolescent workers to remain employed at WWE—should be disqualifying for a position that oversees federal education policy as well as the enforcement of students’ civil rights.
Others, meanwhile, see the attention to the allegations as part of a pattern of hostile and uneven treatment toward Trump’s education picks.
“The allegations are extremely concerning,” Gaylynn Burroughs, the vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center, said in an interview. “This is particularly egregious given that these allegations involve children.”
McMahon’s lawyer denied the claims leveled in the lawsuit filed in October—before Trump’s election—in state court in Maryland.
“This civil lawsuit based upon 30-plus-year-old allegations is filled with scurrilous lies, exaggerations, and misrepresentations regarding Linda McMahon,” said Laura A. Brevetti, a New York City defense lawyer.
Frederick M. Hess, a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies for the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the allegations were not raised when McMahon was confirmed in early 2017 as head of the Small Business Administration, a position she held for two years during the first Trump administration.
“It all feels like the same hypocritical, innuendo-driven, unremittingly hostile gauntlet that confronted Betsy DeVos,” Hess said via email, referring to Trump’s first education secretary, who was also a nontraditional pick to lead the U.S. Department of Education. Hess is a regular Education Week opinion contributor.
A wrestling empire sometimes dogged by legal problems
Trump announced his selection of McMahon, 76, on Nov. 19, saying she will “fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families.”
McMahon served as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment from 1997 until 2009, when she stepped down for the first of two unsuccessful runs for U.S. senator from Connecticut. She and Vince McMahon co-founded the professional wrestling enterprise in the 1980s and oversaw its growth. WWE has been immensely successful financially and in terms of pop culture, but it and its top executives have faced investigations and lawsuits over steroid use by its performers, employment issues, and sexual misconduct.
Vince McMahon, long the public face of WWE, has faced allegations of sexual harassment and he resigned from the company earlier this year after a former employee, Janel Grant, filed a lawsuit that accused him of sexual misconduct and trafficking her to other men.
Linda and Vince McMahon are separated, Brevetti confirmed.
The lawsuit involving alleged sexual abuse of young ring crew workers was filed Oct. 23 in Baltimore County Circuit Court. It revolves around a longtime ring announcer for WWE named Melvin Phillips Jr., who, the suit contends, hired boys as young as 12 and 13 as “ring boys” in different cities to assist and run errands for WWE staff members.
“Phillips’s real motivation in luring the Ring Boys with the promise of gaining access to the popular WWE events was to sexually abuse them,” the suit says.
The defendants are Vince and Linda McMahon, along with WWE and its parent company, TKO Group Holdings Inc.
“Defendants knowingly allowed Phillips to exploit his position at the WWE to groom and abuse Ring Boys, even in plain sight of wrestlers and executives in the locker room area,” the suit says.
The lawsuit alleges that Vince and Linda McMahon knew as early as the mid-1980s that Phillips had an interest in boys. It further alleges that the McMahons fired Phillips in 1988 after a new set of allegations surfaced, but they rehired him six weeks later on the condition that he “steer clear from kids,” as the suit puts it.
“He did not, and they knew it,” the suit says.
The scandal first came to public attention in 1992, and the FBI investigated Phillips and two WWE executives said to be “trusted lieutenants” of the McMahons. Phillips and the two other executives are now dead.
“Despite the FBI’s acquisition of videotape evidence … of Phillips’s actions and its conclusions regarding Phillips’s inappropriate sexual proclivities for young boys, charges were not brought primarily because no alleged victims were willing to admit to or describe the sexual nature of their activity with Phillips,” the suit says.
The suit alleges that Linda McMahon took an active role, along with her husband, in efforts to minimize the impact of the alleged sexual abuse on WWE’s operations.
“Linda McMahon was in the thick of it, acting as Vince’s wife, confidante, co-leader in running the business, and the leader in trying to conceal the sordid underbelly of WWE’s sexual abuse culture,” the suit says.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the former young ring crew workers, described as John Does one through five, who were among the victims of the alleged abuse. The suit seeks damages “in excess of $30,000” for each victim.
The suit was enabled by a 2023 Maryland law that eliminated the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse claims.
“The WWE and McMahons had a responsibility to these underaged boys, and they failed them in the worst way possible,” Mark DiCello, a founding partner of the law firm DiCello Levitt, which filed the suit, said in a statement. “We will vigorously fight to uncover the truth about this systemic, insidious, and life-altering abuse.”
McMahon one of several Trump picks to face scrutiny over sex-related allegations
Brevetti, the lawyer representing Linda McMahon, provided a statement that suggested the allegations involving Phillips and WWE’s handling of them were the subject of an internal probe during the 1990s, as well as the federal inquiry that resulted in no charges.
“The matter at the time was investigated by company attorneys and the FBI, which found no grounds to continue the investigation,” Brevetti said via email. “Ms. McMahon will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit and without doubt ultimately succeed.”
The lawsuit’s allegations of McMahon’s failure to respond to sexual abuse make her only one of several of Trump’s designated Cabinet members to have similar concerns swirling around them.
The president-elect’s first choice for U.S. attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, withdrew amid Senate concerns over allegations that the Florida Republican had sex with a minor and paid other women for sex.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Department of Defense, faced a sexual assault allegation by a woman who had met the military veteran and Fox News host at a political conference. The allegation was investigated by local authorities, but no charges were filed.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president-elect’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, faced an allegation of sexual misconduct by a nanny. Kennedy apologized to the woman and said he had no memory of the alleged incident.
“What we are seeing is unprecedented in terms of the character of some of the people who Trump has nominated for these Cabinet positions the second time around,” said Kathleen Dolan, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who researches gender issues in politics.
The allegations surrounding sexual abuse and the handling of it, as well as the notion (among Trump’s critics) that some of his choices are lacking in qualifications for their designated positions, represents something “new and different,” Dolan said.
“This, to me, is like a giant middle finger to the left and the rest of the country,” she said.
So far, the lawsuit citing McMahon has not attracted much public attention amid the flurry of actions by Trump to round out his cabinet selections.
“The quiet is interesting,” said Dolan.
Connecticut senators aren’t embracing McMahon’s nomination for education secretary
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., supported McMahon’s confirmation as head of the Small Business Administration in 2017.
This time around, the senator—who defeated McMahon in his first Senate run in 2010—isn’t voicing his support for the home-state selection to serve in Trump’s Cabinet. But in a statement to Education Week, the senator didn’t cite the sex abuse-related allegations as a reason.
“President-elect Trump has been clear in his intention to eliminate the Department of Education—which Linda McMahon apparently is ready and willing to do,” Blumenthal said. “…In addition to issues concerning her qualifications, Ms. McMahon’s dedication to the Trump plan destroying her Department raises serious questions about her nomination.”
A spokesperson for Connecticut’s other senator, Democrat Chris Murphy, who defeated McMahon in 2012 but also backed her nomination as SBA administrator, declined to comment on McMahon’s selection to serve as education secretary.
Hess, of the American Enterprise Institute, has been supportive of McMahon as Trump’s choice for education secretary and critical of early news coverage of her, including over her characterization of her academic record and the sexual abuse lawsuit.
“I wish I could at least trust that these charges, which were oddly absent when McMahon was confirmed by 80-odd senators to the SBA in Trump’s first term, are being raised in good faith by progressive and educational journalists,” Hess said via email. “Except I cannot, given that none of those supposedly troubled by this just-filed complaint were bothered when President Biden named to the number two role at the [Education] Department an official for whom there was documented evidence that she’d failed to address allegations of child sexual abuse adequately while superintendent of the San Diego schools.”
Hess was referring to Cynthia Marten, who was confirmed as deputy U.S. secretary of education in 2021 despite allegations that under her leadership, the San Diego Unified School District had mishandled claims of sexual abuse. Those concerns got little attention at her confirmation hearing.
Burroughs, of the National Women’s Law Center, said the lawsuit’s allegations that McMahon failed to act to address sexual abuse are serious enough that they warrant close scrutiny regardless of the motivations of those bringing them or drawing attention to them.
“If these allegations bear out, that’s very serious,” Burroughs said. “That’s exactly why we need confirmation hearings.”
