Washington Times editorial page editor Richard Miniter is filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the paper today, alleging discrimination based on age, disability, and religion — being forced to attend a Unification Church mass wedding — and he will ask the government to enjoin the Times‘ assets, his lawyer tells TPM.
The development adds to an already daunting mess of problems at the newspaper, whose top executives were fired last week, and whose executive editor resigned.
“The state of affairs at the Washington Times, to put it mildly, is in disarray,” Larry Klayman, Miniter’s attorney, tells TPM. “What we’re seeking to do is to freeze everything right now.” Klayman, whose firm is based in Washington and Florida, is the founder of conservative legal group Judicial Watch.
The Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, whose son Preston controls the paper, is known for its mass weddings, in which Rev. Moon is said to often personally make matches based on photographs of brides and grooms.
A spokesman for the Times did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.
A former Wall Street Journal editorial page writer and author of multiple books, Miniter was hired as editorial page editor and vice president of opinion at the Times in March. The article announcing his hire described it as “the latest of a series of dramatic moves to boost the newspaper’s global impact.”
Besides the mass wedding charge, Klayman alleges Miniter and other employees who were over 40 were victims of age discrimination.
Finally, he claims Miniter was forced to work when he was having severe heart problems. During a health scare earlier this year, Miniter was brought out of the newsroom on a stretcher, newsroom sources say.
All of these allegations will be included in the EEOC complaint, Klayman says. He adds that there is a dispute over Miniter’s employment status at the paper, and the paper is improperly continuing to use his name on its masthead.
Politico reported in October that Miniter hadn’t been in his offices since July. Klayman later told the Washington Post that Miniter was negotiating with the paper over compensation issues, citing “financial problems at the Washington Times.”
Klayman tells TPM of the EEOC complaint: “This is just round one.”
Late Update:: Read the complaint here. We hope to have additional information on this tomorrow.
Late 11/18/09 Update: We’ve got more details on Miniter’s complaint — and a picture of the Times masthead — here.
