Washington Post defeats reporter's discrimination claims

Client(s) Washington Post, The

The D.C. Superior Court granted Jones Day's motion to dismiss, on behalf of The Washington Post and a group of current and former senior editors, in a high-profile case filed by one of the newspaper's national political reporters. The reporter had asserted claims for discrimination, retaliation, and negligent infliction of emotional distress arising out of the newspaper's decision not to assign her to cover stories about the #MeToo movement in light of her public advocacy surrounding that issue. The reporter argued that this amounted to discrimination based on sex and based on her status as a victim of sexual assault. The Court, however, agreed with Jones Day that Defendants were entitled under the First Amendment to protect the newspaper's editorial integrity by accounting for the perception of bias in assigning stories, and that those actions did not support a plausible claim for violation of D.C. law. The court dismissed the case in its entirety with prejudice.

Sonmez v. WP Company LLC et al., 2021 CA 002497 B (D.C. Super. Ct. Mar. 25, 2022)