The New York Times is being sued for discrimination. The company was served with a lawsuit for passing up a white man for a promotion. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the lawsuit on Tuesday on behalf of a New York Times editor who lodged a complaint against the company.
The New York Times called the lawsuit politically motivated and said it would defend itself “vigorously,” according to a report by The Associated Press.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. According to the filing, the man alerted the EEOC that he did not get the role of deputy real estate editor in 2025, and alleged that gender and racial discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was the reason. This law prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, national origin, or religion.
The EEOC claimed the news organization’s publicly stated goals of increasing the number of women and people of color in its leadership ranks influenced the decision to exclude the white male applicant for a final round of interviews, while advancing three women and a Black man.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, has been a staunch champion of the Trump administration’s campaign against corporate diversity policies that she argues veer into discrimination against white men and others. In December, Lucas posted a social media call urging white men to come forward with complaints if they believe they have faced discrimination because of their employer’s diversity policies.
“No one is above the law — including ‘elite’ institutions. There is no such thing as ‘reverse discrimination;’ all race or sex discrimination is equally unlawful, according to long-established civil rights principles,” Lucas said in a statement. “No matter the size or power of the employer, the EEOC under my leadership will not pull punches in ensuring evenhanded, colorblind enforcement of Title VII to protect America’s workers, including white males.”
The New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said the EEOC “deviated from standard practices in highly unusual ways. The allegation centers on a single personnel decision for one of over 100 deputy positions across the newsroom, yet the EEOC’s filing makes sweeping claims that ignore the facts to fit a predetermined narrative.”
“Neither race nor gender played a role in this decision – we hired the most qualified candidate, and she is an excellent editor,” Rhoades Ha added. –The Associated Press
The EEOC complaint said the complainant, who was not identified, has worked as an editor for the New York Times since 2014, mostly as a senior staff editor on the international desk, however, he did have previous experience working on real estate stories.
The lawsuit claims that the woman ultimately appointed deputy real estate editor over the white man “did not have experience with real estate journalism,” but “as a multiracial female, this candidate matched the race and/or sex characteristics NYT sought to increase in its leadership.” The EEOC said one final panel interviewer described her as “a bit green overall.”
In almost all cases, it is illegal under Title VII for employers to take race or gender into account when making hiring, promotion, and other decisions.