the conservative gadfly she alleges triggered her firing by the Obama
administration and ignited a national debate on race and reverse
discrimination.
Sherrod was the
civil rights group in which Sherrod, an African-American woman,
suggested that she once discriminated against a white farmer seeking
help.
The resulting tumult led the
for Sherrod’s resignation. But once the entire video was made public,
it became clear that Sherrod was talking about overcoming her own
racial prejudices.
Agriculture Secretary
“Although the defamatory blog post authored by
Defendant Breitbart purported to show video proof that Mrs. Sherrod
exhibited racism in performance of her
the complaint, posted Monday by the website Talking Points Memo, the
video Breitbart used was an excerpt “from a much longer speech by Mrs.
Sherrod that demonstrated exactly the opposite.”
As a result of Breitbart’s actions, the complaint
says, Sherrod has suffered “enduring damage to her reputation, as well
as emotional distress and financial damages from her loss of employment
at
The lawsuit does not request a specific award and
seeks punitive damages. It also requests that Brietbart and his company
remove all “defamatory language and video” from his blog at
BigGovernment.com — as well as from YouTube.
Breitbart was served with the suit late last week while attending the
In response, Breitbart’s media company released a
statement that said, in part: “The lawsuit … does not name as
co-Defendants President
“Mr. Breitbart categorically rejects the transparent
effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech and, to
reiterate, looks forward to exercising his full and broad discovery
rights. Mr. Breitbart is absolutely confident of being fully
vindicated.”
In October, the
officials, fearful of the escalating fallout from the story, didn’t
know the facts surrounding Sherrod’s video remarks and had not seen the
full speech before moving to, first, place her on leave before,
ultimately, firing her.
———
(c) 2011, Tribune Co.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.