A white employee of the New York Times accuses his newspaper of having excluded him from a promotion because of his skin color and his gender. According to a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a daily employee claims he was denied a promotion because he is a white man. On Tuesday, the American federal agency, now led by an official appointed by Donald Trump, decided to sue the newspaper.
The EEOC believes that everyday diversity objectives would have led to “unlawful employment practices”. On the contrary, the newspaper’s management denounces accusations “politically motivated”. THE New York Times himself revealed the existence of the procedure, without however identifying the complainant. Internally, the affair caused agitation and incomprehension. Several journalists from the daily sought to discover the identity of the employee at the origin of the complaint, some seeing in this approach a form of betrayal towards their own editorial staff, while the Trump administration is increasing its offensives against the media.
“You are giving the Trump administration a weapon as it attempts to persecute journalists”told a reporter at New York Magazine. According to several testimonies collected by the American media, suspicion quickly fell on Bryant Rousseau, senior editor and producer in the newspaper’s international department, who has been with the company for more than ten years. His LinkedIn profile would match the one described in the complaint.
A contested promotion
At the heart of the file is a position of deputy editor-in-chief of the real estate section. The complainant claims to fulfill “all the required conditions”including experience in real estate journalism. However, he would not have been selected for the final interview. The complaint claims that “did not match the racial and/or sexual characteristics that the New York Times sought to promote in its management through its diversity policies”.
According to the document, the finalists consisted of“a white woman, a black man, an Asian woman and a multiracial woman”. It was ultimately the latter who obtained the position, even though she did not meet, according to the complaint, certain requirements related to experience in real estate journalism. However, employees of the newspaper consider these accusations absurd. “There are a lot of white men at the top of the New York Times. It’s really not something that’s blocking you.”reacted a journalist. Among the examples cited is Joe Kahn, the daily’s editorial director, himself a white man.
Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokesperson for the newspaper, defended the group’s policy: “The charge focuses on a single decision regarding one position among more than a hundred editorial assistant positions, yet the EEOC’s complaint makes broad accusations that ignore the facts to fit a predetermined narrative. »
The initial complaint was filed in July 2025 with the New York office of the EEOC. Internally, some employees now fear the impossibility of sanctioning the complainant. “This person now has lifelong job security after this procedure. What chaos »summarizes a member of the editorial staff to our colleagues.
