Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez has brought a lawsuit alleging her editors and supervisors used her own experience with sexual assault against her, and retaliated to her speaking out on the subject leaving her “chastised, silenced and subjected to humiliation”.
A political reporter for the Washington Post (WaPo) filed a lawsuit on Thursday claiming the newspaper unlawfully barred her from writing about allegations of sexual misconduct after she publicly disclosed that she was a victim of sexual assault.
Felicia Sonmez, who covers breaking political news for WaPo, filed a complaint in Washington, D.C., Superior Court claiming she was prohibited from covering alleged misconduct by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and other major stories that would have helped to advance her career.
Sonmez, who says she was assaulted by a Los Angeles Times bureau chief in 2017, claims WaPo’s nearly two-year prohibition caused her to develop depression and anxiety that she is still treating.
“Instead of being able to do her job like her colleagues outside of her protected class, Ms. Sonmez was chastised, silenced and subjected to humiliation on a repeated basis for being a victim of sexual assault (and) for defending herself against false accusations,” her lawyers at Alderman Devorsetz & Hora wrote.
A spokesperson for WaPo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The newspaper is owned by Nash Holdings LLC, which is controlled by Amazon.com Inc founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos.
Sonmez in the complaint says she was sexually assaulted by the L.A. Times’ former Beijing bureau chief, Jonathan Kaiman, when she was living in the Chinese capital. She came forward with those claims after another woman published a piece on the website Medium.com accusing Kaiman of sexual misconduct.
Kaiman resigned from the Times in the wake of the allegations. He denied the claims and said his relationship with Sonmez was consensual.
Sonmez says that after making the claims against Kaiman, she was criticized for destroying his career and received rape and death threats. Instead of coming to her aid, WaPo editors suspended Sonmez from covering sexual misconduct cases and any issues related to the #MeToo movement, according to her complaint.
The newspaper only lifted the ban in late March, one day after Politico published a story about WaPo’s alleged treatment of Sonmez, according to the complaint.
You can read the Felicia Sonmez lawsuit against The Washington Post for yourself here:
Felicia Sonmez
Same thing happened to O’Reilly.
Wait. How does whataboutism work again?Report
What “thing” that happened to O’Reilly do you have in mind? In O’Reilly’s case, he was the sexual abuser. In this case, Sonmez was the sexually abused.Report
I guess that this makes what the WaPo did especially egregious.
Unless there’s some “we don’t think that you’ll have the necessary journalistic distance to cover this story fairly” thing going on. I wouldn’t want to be the editor defending that decision in the current year, I tell you what.Report
It seems almost as if JB cannot perceive the asymmetry between an abuser and a victim of abuse. This is a repeated pattern for him and it’s very odd.Report
(I was mocking “whataboutism”.)
*I* wouldn’t be interested in defending it… but once people see who is sharpening their knives getting ready to pounce on Bezos’s newspaper for this, I am very interested in seeing who gets anti-anti.Report
So, to repeat the question, what “thing” that happened to O’Reilly did you have in mind?Report
Um, the fact that he got shitcanned for being a bad actor.
Compare/contrast to being taken off of a beat for being harassed.
Completely and absolutely different.
But if I wanted to deflect an attack away from the Warshington Post, I’d yell “LOOK OVER THERE!” and point to Fox News or something.
Because, well, you have to understand. The Warshington Post is doing important work. Stuff like this shouldn’t detract from what they’re doing.
It’s the Al Franken of newspapers. People just want to kick it while it’s down in service to a belief system that they don’t even hold.Report
Once you have to say plainly what you’re talking about, it’s far less interesting. It’s also not “the same thing.” In fact, as has been pointed out, it’s the opposite of “the same thing.”
If and when someone whatabouts WAPO by pointing at Fox, have at it. In the meantime, your argument is, apparently, with the voices in your head.Report
In the meantime, your argument is, apparently, with the voices in your head.
I prefer to call them “models”.Report
Of course that’s what you’d prefer to call them.Report
Related:
Activision Blizzard Sued Over ‘Frat Boy’ Culture, Harassment
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/activision-blizzard-sued-by-california-over-frat-boy-culture
Because our Twitter age has the attention span of a gnat, I think there are a lot of people who think MeToo is sort of an old issue, discussed, litigated, resolved.
But…the WaPo case and this one, demonstrate that the disrespect and marginalization of women is a continuing problem in need of being addressed.
What they demonstrate isn’t rogue individuals, odd Man Bites Dog anomalies, but chronic persistent cultures that foster abuse.Report
Haven’t you heard Chip – everyone here except you and me is quite sure these are all individual choices and not the result of systems of “-isms” that need to be constantly addressed.Report