Although neither Ye nor an attorney working on his behalf showed up for the hearing, a judge ordered the rapper and a former Donda Academy employee to attempt mediation over the plaintiff’s claims that Ye often treated him in a disparate way because the plaintiff, like Ye, is Black.
Benjamin Deshon Provo’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit also names as defendants Ye’s academy as well as his company, Yeezy LLC. On Thursday, Judge Kerry Bensinger held a case management conference in which he scheduled a Sept. 24, 2025, hearing to update him on the progress of the mediation. The judge also set a nonjury trial for Dec. 8, 2025.
A minute order prepared by the judge’s clerk stated that there was “no appearance made by or for counsel for (Ye), nor communication with the court as to why there is no appearance this date.”
According to the complaint filed April 26, Provo was hired in August 2021 as a security guard at the academy founded by Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.
“Kanye and members of his management team subjected Provo and other Black employees to less favorable treatment than their white counterparts,” according to the suit, which further alleges that Ye often screamed at the plaintiff.
Provo alleges Ye, 47, also chided him for styling his hair according to the plaintiff’s Muslim religion, forcing Provo to wrestle with maintaining his self-identity in the face of financial rise.
Provo was eventually fired for not following Ye’s hair edict, the suit alleges.
In addition, Ye, now 46, banned books about such famous Black civil rights figures as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, the suit states.
In previous court papers, Ye’s former attorney cited multiple defenses on behalf of the entertainer while asking that the plaintiff “take nothing by his complaint” and instead pay attorneys’ fees and costs to the singer.
Ye’s defenses include a violation of the statute of limitations, that the three defendants were “justified in doing any and/or all of the acts alleged in the complaint” and that the defendants did not “direct or ratify any alleged wrongful conduct.”