Felicia Sonmez, a Washington Post reporter, on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the newspaper and some of its top editors, claiming they had discriminated against her by barring her from covering stories related to sexual assault after she went public as a victim of assault.
Sonmez, who has covered breaking political news at The Post since 2018, said in the lawsuit that she had been subjected to a hostile work environment after her editors put in place two bans over nearly two years that prevented her from excelling at her job.
The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Among the defendants is The Post’s former executive editor, Martin Baron, who retired in February. The suit also names as defendants five current high-level editors, Cameron Barr, Tracy Grant, Steve Ginsberg, Lori Montgomery and Peter Wallsten.
Sonmez said in the lawsuit that after she publicly stated in 2018 that she had been assaulted by a fellow journalist while living in Beijing, The Post barred her from covering Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. (The accused journalist, who worked for the Los Angeles Times at the time, has denied the allegations.)
After an article in Reason magazine on allegations against the journalist came out a year later, Sonmez said The Post again subjected her to a coverage ban. She added that her editors had “disciplined” her for publicly requesting a correction to the article.
In January 2020, The Post suspended Sonmez after she tweeted a link to a news article detailing sexual assault allegations against basketball star Kobe Bryant shortly after his death. She alleges in the lawsuit that The Post did not provide security for her when she was inundated afterwards with rape and death threats. That suspension was later overturned.
The second coverage ban against Sonmez was lifted after she publicly pleaded with her editors to do so, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit said that, because of the coverage bans, Sonmez “was denied the opportunity to cover many stories that were newsworthy and received widespread attention that would have led to further exposure and career advancement.” She also suffered “economic loss, humiliation, embarrassment, mental and emotional distress, and the deprivation of her rights to equal employment opportunities,” according to the suit.
A spokesperson for The Post declined to comment. Baron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sonmez has demanded a jury trial. She is asking for $2 million in damages or an amount “to be determined by the jury.”
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