The Washington Post settled a defamation lawsuit filed by the parents of a Kentucky teenager over the newspaper’s coverage of his encounter with a Native American protester in Washington last year, an event that sparked a national debate.
The newspaper said Friday that it had reached the agreement, but did not disclose the terms. “We are pleased that we were able to reach a mutually acceptable resolution of the remaining claims in this lawsuit,” said Kristine Coratti Kelly, a spokeswoman for The Post.
The parents of Nicholas Sandmann, a student at Covington Catholic High School in Covington, Kentucky, had sued the newspaper for $ 250 million, alleging that The Post had “attacked and harassed him” in its coverage of the incident. The amount reflected the sum that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, had paid to buy The Post in 2013.
Lawyers for the Sandmann family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The encounter between Sandmann, 16 at the time, and an elderly Native American, Nathan Phillips, was captured in a widely shared video. He showed the student among his mostly white classmates, many of them wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, at the Lincoln Memorial.
The students were in Washington to attend an anti-abortion rally when they ended up near Mr. Phillips and others from an Indigenous Peoples March. Mr. Phillips could be seen surrounded by a group of students singing; At one point, he and Mr. Sandmann were face to face.
Because the video was shared online, they quickly became avatars of a politically divided population. When the Sandmans sued The Post last year, President Trump applauded the effort, tweeting, “Go find them, Nick. Fake news! “
A federal judge initially dismissed the lawsuit, but reversed the decision after the Sandmann family amended the complaint.
The Sandmans struck a separate deal with CNN this year, with no details from the family or the cable network. The family has active cases against various other media outlets, including The New York Times.
