WASHINGTON – A year to the day after Shirley Sherrod was ousted from the Agriculture Department, the former government employee is still seeking vindication.
On July 19, 2010, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack ordered Sherrod’s resignation from her job as a Georgia rural development official after learning about a video of Sherrod making supposedly racist remarks. On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court will hold the first hearing in Sherrod’s defamation case against the conservative blogger who posted the video.
The video on Andrew Breitbart’s website turned out to be edited, and when Sherrod’s full speech to an NAACP group earlier that year came to light, it became clear that her remarks about an initial reluctance to help a white farmer were not racist but an attempt at telling a story of racial reconciliation. Once that was obvious to everyone, Sherrod received public apologies from the administration — even from President Barack Obama himself — and an offer to come back to the USDA, which she declined.
Sherrod is now suing Breitbart, his employee Larry O’Connor and an unnamed “John Doe” defendant for “defamation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” Sherrod’s lawyers say the unnamed defendant is the person who they believe passed
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