05 August 2021

The Washington Post Settled With Nicholas Sandmann

Nicholas Sandmann
A few weeks ago,The Washington Post settled, for undisclosed terms, a US$ 250 million lawsuit filed by Nicholas Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School student who had a viral encounter with a Native American activist last year at a protest at the Lincoln Memorial.

"We are pleased that we have been able to reach a mutually agreeable resolution of the remaining claims in this lawsuit," Kris Coratti, a spokesperson for the paper, said in a statement to TheWrap.

On Twitter, Sandmann — who is now 18 years old — celebrated the settlement on Twitter.

"Thanks to my family and millions of you who have stood your ground by supporting me," Sandmann tweeted. "I still have more to do."

Sandmann in 2019 became a national news story when as a student at Covington Catholic High School he was in Washington, DC, for the annual March for Life rally.

In a video that gained national attention, Sandmann was in an encounter with Omaha tribe elder Nathan Phillips, who was beating a hand-held drum and singing at the Indigenous Peoples March at the Lincoln Memorial on the same day.

Another video that surfaced days later provided additional context for the encounter, but the first video had gone viral, touching off widespread controversy as photos of the teenager and the red Make America Great Again hat he was wearing spread across social media.

In the second video, a group of black men who identified as members of the Black Hebrew Israelites were seen taunting the students from Covington Catholic High School with disparaging language and shouting racist slurs at participants in the Indigenous Peoples Rally and other passersby.

Sandmann at the time strongly denied accusations against him, saying he had been trying to "defuse the situation" by "remaining motionless and calm."

Sandmann also sued CNN for US$ 275 million over similar accusations of defamation regarding its coverage of the encounter. The network settled its suit with Sandmann in January for undisclosed terms.