Soap opera actress Victoria Rowell will move forward with her lawsuit against Sony Pictures Television, according to The Hollywood Reporter. A California judge gave her the green light to move to the next stage of the process.

Rowell acted on “The Young and the Restless” for 14 years, playing the popular character Drucilla Barber Winters. She left the series in 2007, but fans called for her return to the show, or its sister series “The Bold and the Beautiful.”

But, Rowell’s lawsuit claims, producers refused to hire her back as retaliation for her activism. Rowell, as THR reports, “began advocacy work pushing to have African-Americans more involved in entertainment. Among other things, she campaigned to have black actors in the front row for press photos, urged that black journalists be included in the show’s press corps, and lobbied for a black hair stylist.”

You can read U.S. District Judge John Kronstadt’s full decision here. It was a case he originally threw out, but after Rowell amended her claim to include an attempt at earning a job on “Days of Our Lives” it was accepted. Kronstadt writes, “In a challenge to casting decisions, there is a critical distinction between claims of alleged discrimination and those of alleged retaliation. Plaintiff does not allege that the failure to hire her was due to her race or that the casting decisions by any of the Defendants were made on that ground. … Instead, Plaintiff alleges that she was not hired in retaliation for engaging in protected speech. Plaintiff here does not allege that the decision not to hire her was related to Defendants’ creative vision for their programs. The [amended complaint] instead alleges that the retaliation arose from disagreements with Plaintiff and her positions about hiring more African Americans, not ones about the appropriate racial diversity for characters on the programs.”

Women and Hollywood will keep you updated on the status of this lawsuit as Rowell moves forward.