07-16-2024
Veteran reporter Stephanie Armour is suing the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for disability discrimination. Armour says the paper contrived her performance issues because she and others caused significant healthcare costs. Armour believes the self-insured WSJ doubles its savings by laying off employees with high medical care costs.
The WSJ allowed Armour to work from home several days a week during her employment because of disabilities related to her post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorder. Beginning in 2015, Armour had issues with her accommodation after she and her editor disagreed. Following that disagreement, her editor would no longer allow Armour to work from home. So Armour filed a formal request to work from home for two days, and the paper granted her request. Armour alleges a former supervisor said the editor continued to have issues with Armour working from home. After the paper reassigned Armour, she worked from home three days a week. However, Armour says the paper did not consider her for editing jobs because of the remote arrangement. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Armour worked seven days a week. Over the next two years, the WSJ nominated her twice for Pulitzer prizes, gave her a performance bonus, and praised her performance. When the paper appointed a new editor-in-chief, Armour received pressure to come in three days a week. The HR department did grant her request for additional remote work options. However, Armour alleges that the Washington bureau chief placed her on a formal performance warning nine days later. Included in that warning was the demand that Armour have one news scoop a week. Armour alleges that is beyond what any reporter does. Armour asserts that WSJ also targeted other reporters who have high health costs and accommodation needs.
WSJ has recently laid off dozens of journalists throughout several departments, per NPR. A spokesperson told NPR that the complaint was "filled with baseless allegations, and the legal claims are entirely without merit." It plans to fight the lawsuit.