The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against The New York Times on Tuesday, 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 U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, says The Times’s “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 E.E.O.C.,” said Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for The Times. “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 last year when an employee filed a complaint with the E.E.O.C. 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.
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 E.E.O.C.’s investigation has deviated from its standard practice, said Ms. Rhoades Ha, the Times spokeswoman. “The allegation centers on a single personnel decision for one of over 100 deputy positions across the newsroom, yet the E.E.O.C.’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 E.E.O.C. 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 President Trump’s agenda. She has pressed staff to pursue cases aligned with the administration’s political priorities, including taking aim at diversity programs 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 organizations and Nike.
The commission is currently made up of three commissioners — two Republicans, including Ms. Lucas, and one Democrat. A majority had to vote to authorize the lawsuit against The Times.
In a statement posted online Tuesday, Kalpana Kotagal — the commission’s lone Democrat — 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 monthslong investigation of The Times, the E.E.O.C. 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 also 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 organizations it has taken aim at. Last week, regulators ordered a review of station licenses owned by ABC, saying it was prompted by an investigation into the network’s diversity and inclusion policies.
