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A US civil rights group filed a discrimination lawsuit Tuesday against the New York Times, saying the news organization passed over a white male employee for a promotion in favor of a less qualified woman to meet its diversity goals.
The New York Times called the case politically motivated and said it would defend itself “vigorously.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of a New York Times editor who filed a complaint after she wasn’t offered the role of deputy real estate editor in 2025 — alleging sex and racial discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or gender.
The EEOC said the organization’s publicly disclosed goals to increase the number of women and people of color in leadership positions contributed to the decision to exclude a white male applicant from the final round of interviews, while promoting three women and a black male.
EEOC chairwoman Andrea Lucas, a Republican, has been a staunch champion of the Trump administration’s campaign against corporate diversity policies that she says turn out to discriminate against white men and others. In December, Lucas put out a call on social media urging white men to come forward with complaints if they believe they have been discriminated against due to employers’ discrimination policies.
“No one is above the law – including ‘higher’ institutions. There is no such thing as ‘reparation,'” Lucas said in a statement. “Regardless of the size or power of the employer, the EEOC under my leadership will pull no punches in ensuring enforcement of Title VII without a hand, to protect American workers, including white males.”
New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said the EEOC “departed from standard practice in the most unusual ways. The allegations centered on a single personnel decision in one of more than 100 deputy positions across the media, yet the EEOC’s filing makes shocking 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 person, and he is a top-notch editor,” said Rhoades Ha.
In a lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the EEOC complaint said the plaintiff, who has not been identified, has worked as an editor for The New York Times since 2014, specifically as a senior staff editor on the international desk with previous experience working on real estate issues.
The lawsuit says the woman who was eventually named deputy housing editor “had no experience in housing journalism” but “as a woman of mixed race, this candidate matched the race and/or gender characteristics the NYT sought to increase its leadership.” The EEOC said one interviewer eventually described him as “a little bit of green overalls.”
The EEOC’s lawsuit specifically cited the newspaper’s diversity and inclusion policies as evidence of the allegedly discriminatory policies.
In particular, the lawsuit cites the organization’s “Call to Action” plan published in February 2021, in which it set a goal to increase the number of black and Latino workers in leadership by 50 percent by 2025. The EEOC said the New York Times met that goal by 2022 but continued its commitment to various goals. According to reports cited in the lawsuit, white workers make up 68 percent of leadership by 2024, compared to 29 percent of people of color.
Lucas has strongly criticized the advocacy intentions of many companies that have publicly announced, especially after the racial protests of 2020 following the police killing of the black man George Floyd in Minneapolis.
In almost all cases, it is illegal under Title VII for employers to consider race or gender when making hiring, promotion and other decisions. Lucas targets practices that he says pressure managers to do just that, from certain types of non-bias training to ensuring a diverse pool of participants. Critics say the EEOC is attacking longstanding practices designed to level the playing field for workers who have experienced discrimination in US workplaces.
In February, the EEOC revealed it was investigating sportswear giant Nike for racial discrimination against white employees. Unlike the New York Times case, the Nike investigation did not stem from an employee complaint but from Lucas himself, who filed what’s known as a “commissioner’s case” to investigate a range of diversity policies at the sneaker company.
