Judge Dismisses a Discrimination Case Against The Washington Post

A decide in Washington, D.C., dismissed on Thursday a discrimination lawsuit from The Washington Submit submitted by a reporter at the paper.

The reporter, Felicia Sonmez, accused the paper in July of discriminating in opposition to her by barring her from reporting on tales related to sexual assault immediately after she publicly identified herself as a target of assault.

The lawsuit named The Publish as a defendant, as well as its former executive editor Martin Baron and 5 other top editors.

Decide Anthony C. Epstein of the Top-quality Court docket of the District of Columbia dismissed the case with prejudice, which indicates the rates cannot be refiled. He mentioned in his choice that Ms. Sonmez had not produced “a plausible declare that The Publish took adverse employment steps, or designed a hostile work ecosystem, due to the fact of her sex or standing as a victim of sexual assault.”

Ms. Sonmez’s attorney, Sundeep Hora, stated they planned to enchantment the conclusion. “We’re let down in the ruling, and we strongly disagree with the ruling,” he explained.

Mr. Baron stated in an electronic mail on Thursday: “I am grateful for a lawful system that allowed the promises in this lawsuit to be evaluated objectively.”

A spokeswoman for The Article declined to remark.

Ms. Sonmez joined The Publish in 2018 as a nationwide political reporter. She reported that in just a number of months her editors forbade her to protect the sexual misconduct allegations towards Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, at the time a Supreme Courtroom nominee, immediately after Ms. Sonmez issued a statement about staying sexually assaulted by a different journalist. (The journalist has denied the allegation.)

About a year afterwards, Ms. Sonmez claimed, she was barred for a second time from masking tales relating to sexual assault right after she once again spoke publicly about her assault, this time to ask for a correction to an write-up in Reason journal working with the allegations from the gentleman she accused.

That coverage ban on Ms. Sonmez was lifted only following she publicly pleaded with her editors to do so, she stated in her lawsuit. Remaining denied the means to go over newsworthy tales and acquiring to reveal the ban to her editors harmed her profession, she stated, and prompted her economic decline and mental and emotional distress.

Choose Epstein famous in his ruling that Ms. Sonmez experienced kept her career just after her public statements and had not said that she was presented “second-rate stories.” all through the two protection bans.

“Her only complaint about her assignments during the bans is that they did not contain stories with #MeToo-relevant ramifications,” he continued.

He additional that The Put up experienced attributed the protection bans to her community statements, not to her gender or status as a sufferer.

“Indeed, a information publication has a constitutionally protected suitable to adopt and implement guidelines supposed to secure public trust in its impartiality and objectivity,” the judge wrote.

The Submit, as section of its argument that it experienced not damaged the law, experienced asked for that the scenario be dismissed under laws identified as Anti-SLAPP, which is meant to safeguard speech. The Submit had argued that its selections on which tales Ms. Sonmez was barred from covering had been element of its editorial judgment shielded by the First Modification.

Choose Epstein claimed decisions about how to assign reporters were not included by Anti-SLAPP legislation because they have been not “a variety of speech.”