A U.S. District Court has denied four media outlets’ motions to dismiss lawsuits brought against them by Covington teenager Nick Sandmann. The denied motions were from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, ABC News, and CBS News, Sandmann, now 18 years old, announced Thursday evening.
Sandmann has sued seven media outlets, arguing each defamed him in their reporting of the now-infamous interaction the then-16-year-old student had with Nathan Phillips, a Native American man participating in the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, D.C., which coincided with the annual March for Life.
“Today marks another important step towards achieving justice against a media that thinks it has a license to smear,” he said in a statement to The Post Millennial.
Earlier this summer, Sandmann announced he had reached a settlement agreement with The Washington Post for an undisclosed amount. CNN likewise settled out of court with the teenager in January.
The entire controversy began in January 2019, when Sandmann and Phillips first encountered one another in Washington, D.C. Initial media reporting falsely suggested Sandmann — who was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat — had intentionally tried to intimidate the elderly Native American man, suggesting, too, that Sandmann was racist.
Those reports, though, were made based on misleading video footage.
Additional videos released later revealed Sandmann was not the aggressor in the situation. Instead, it was he and his fellow Covington High School classmates who were targeted by counter-protesters.