On January 18th 2019, in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. the annual March for Life took place. Nick Sandmann, a junior at Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Kentucky was captured in a viral photo and video at the March for Life. The video shows Sandmann and a few other young men, clad in “Make America Great Again” hats, standing in front of Native American Leader and activist Nathan Phillips. The students, including Sandmann, were shown mocking Phillips in the video footage.

At first the Diocese of Covington in Kentucky disagreed with Sandmann’s behavior. Then the Diocese called for a third party investigation into the matter. On January 19th 2019, The Washington Post ran a story about the incident at the March for Life. Sandmann claims the newspaper was defamatory toward him and biased. After this article and the video went viral, Sandmann received physical and death threats.

U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman went over the statements made by The Washington Post and found none of them to be defamatory. The judge stated that The Washington Post article is protected by the first amendment. The case was dismissed on July 26th 2019. The Washington Post has stood by it’s articles and tweets on the january 18th incident.

For more information check out The Tablet’s article here.

Image credit goes to CNS/Kaya Taitano, social media/Reuters.