US sues The New York Times, claiming discrimination against a white man

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the US filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against The New York Times on May 5, claiming that the paper had engaged in “unlawful employment practices” and had discriminated against a white male employee who did not get a sought-after promotion.

The lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, says the Times’ “stated race and sex-based representation goals influenced the decision not to advance” the man’s candidacy for a deputy real estate editor role in 2025.

“The New York Times categorically rejects the politically motivated allegations brought by the Trump administration’s EEOC,” said Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha. “Our employment practices are merit-based and focused on recruiting and promoting the best talent in the world. We will defend ourselves vigorously.”

The lawsuit followed a rapid escalation of an investigation that began in 2025 when an employee filed a complaint with the EEOC in New York. The lawsuit indicates that the employee, who is not named, had worked at the paper as an editor since 2014 and applied for the deputy editor job in 2025.

The complaint quotes from Times diversity and inclusion reports in recent years, including a 2021 “Call to Action” that set a goal of increasing the number of Black and Latino employees.

The reports “detailed NYT’s express efforts to make employment decisions on the basis of race and sex to achieve its desired demographic goals”, the complaint says. “A decrease in the percentage of White male employees (whether new hires, existing employees, or those in leadership, as appropriate) was a necessary consequence for the NYT to achieve these results.”

The complaint also quotes from exchanges on the messaging platform Slack among newsroom leaders about trends in diversity hiring, and from internal correspondence related to the hiring process of the deputy editor role.

The exchanges were provided to the EEOC, at the agency’s request, during the investigation that preceded the lawsuit, a person at the Times who is familiar with the matter said. The person said the deputy real estate editor role was not in the scope of the Times’ goals for increasing diversity.

According to the complaint, the complainant was interviewed for the job but was not selected for a panel interview.

“The four candidates advanced to the panel interview stage matched the race and/or sex characteristics NYT sought to increase in its leadership,” the complaint says. According to the complaint, the final pool of candidates consisted of “a white woman, a Black man, an Asian female and a multiracial female.”

The complaint asserts that the white man was more qualified than the person who ultimately got the job. The person at the Times said the job listing specifically sought somebody with experience in service journalism, which the person who got the job had, in addition to experience as a supervisor.

The EEOC’s investigation has deviated from its standard practice, Ms Rhoades Ha said.

“The allegation centres 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,” she said. “Neither race nor gender played a role in this decision – we hired the most qualified candidate, and she is an excellent editor.”

The EEOC is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws in the workplace. Under the second Trump administration, its Republican chair Andrea Lucas has recast the agency as an executor of US President Donald Trump’s agenda. She has pressed staff to pursue cases aligned with the administration’s political priorities, including taking aim at diversity programmes that she has said discriminate against white men.

This has often been expressed as legal action against institutions that Mr Trump has identified as hostile, including universities, media organisations and Nike.

“No one is above the law – including ‘elite’ institutions,” Ms Lucas said in a statement about the lawsuit on May 5. “There is no such thing as ‘reverse discrimination’; all race or sex discrimination is equally unlawful, according to long-established civil rights principles. The EEOC is prepared to root out discrimination anywhere it may rear its head.”

The commission is currently made up of three commissioners – two Republicans, including Ms Lucas, and one Democrat. A majority had to vote to authorise the lawsuit against the Times.

In a statement posted online on May 5, the commission’s Democrat, Ms Kalpana Kotagal, wrote that she had voted against the litigation “because I disagree with the substance of the case and don’t believe it’s a good use of scarce agency resources”.

After a months-long investigation of the Times, the EEOC engaged the company in early April in “conciliation”, a process of voluntary, brokered mediation, according to a person who had been briefed on the investigation but was not able to discuss it publicly.

On April 21, the agency cut off the process and said it was referring the matter for possible legal action, the person said. The complaint says the Times did not offer a solution that the commission would accept.

The complaint requests compensation, including back pay for the complainant, and asks the court to issue an injunction to keep the Times from “discriminating against employees because of race or sex” and compelling the paper to “eradicate the effects of its past and present unlawful employment practices”.

Mr Trump and his administration have used the regulatory tools of the federal government to hound and, in some cases, extract financial penalties from media organisations it has taken aim at. Last week, regulators ordered a review of station licences owned by ABC, saying it was prompted by an investigation into the network’s diversity and inclusion policies. NYTIMES