PORTLAND — Portland native Victoria Rowell, who played the character of Drucilla Winters on the soap opera “The Young & The Restless” for 17 years, is claiming in a lawsuit she’s been ostracized by the show’s producers because she criticized the program’s lack of diversity.

People magazine was among several media outlets to report Wednesday that Rowell is suing television network CBS and soap producers Sony Pictures Entertainment, among others. The suit claims CBS and Sony retaliated against her for publicly chastising the show for what she considered its lack of racial diversity both on-camera and off.

Rowell, 55, was born in Portland and left “The Young & The Restless” in 2007. The actress, who also appeared in the CBS medical crime drama “Diagnosis: Murder” for eight years and the 1994 Hollywood comedy “Dumb and Dumber,” reportedly claims in her lawsuit she has made repeated attempts to return to the soap since 2010.

However, advocates for Rowell’s return to the show, including National Urban League President Marc Morial, stated in court documents that their efforts were rebuffed by CBS and Sony “because of her advocacy for increased African-American employment in front of and behind the camera,” People reported.

“(Rowell was) impoverished and blackballed because she had chosen to speak out against the discrimination and injustice that she had endured and witnessed happen to other African-Americans,” the actress’ lawsuit claims, according to People.

CBS released a statement responding to the legal complaint, saying network officials “harbor no ill will toward Ms. Rowell, but we will vigorously defend this case.”

“We were disappointed to learn that, after leaving the cast of ‘The Young and the Restless’ on her own initiative, Ms. Rowell has attempted to rewrite that history through lawyers’ letters and a lawsuit that has no merit,” CBS stated, according to People.

Rowell argues in her court filing that she was passed over for opportunities to write and direct episodes of the soap opera, while white actors were given chances, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The actress also claims she called for black actors to get front-row placement in publicity photographs, black journalists to be added to the show’s press corps and a black hair stylist to be hired to the show’s crew.

Eriq Gardner, senior editor at The Hollywood Reporter, wrote Wednesday that the Rowell lawsuit is threatened by a three-year-old First Amendment precedent, as a federal judge ruled in 2012 that casting decisions are constitutionally protected forms of free speech by television producers.

In that case, Gardner wrote, ABC and Warner Horizon Television successfully convinced a judge to throw out a class action lawsuit over what a group of plaintiffs argued was an intentional lack of racial diversity on the reality matchmaking shows “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette.”