Students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky were involved in a viral interaction with Native American activists that became a social media zeitgeist of the Trump era. | John Minchillo/AP Photo legal Covington student's defamation case against Washington Post is dismissed

A federal judge on Friday dismissed a multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post over its coverage of an interaction between a Kentucky high school student and a Native American activist on the National Mall, which gained national attention after the video went viral.

Judge William O. Bertelsman dismissed the suit, stating that the Post's coverage was protected as free speech and rejecting Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann's argument that the newspaper implied inaccurately that Sandmann had behaved in a menacing or violent way. The Post had quoted the activist, a veteran named Nathan Phillips, who said Sandmann stood in his way to get to the Lincoln Memorial in the Jan 19 incident.


Bertelsman wrote that though Phillips' claim may have been inaccurate, the Post had a right to publish it. The Post couldn't be sued for defamation simply if some of its reporting was inaccurate, he wrote, rather it had to both false and defamatory.

Bertelsman added that the Post did not report factually that Sandmann was acting in a criminally violent manner. He added that many of the statements that Sandmann alleged were defamatory were not actually about him but about the students as a whole.

Sandmann sued the Post for $250 million claiming "modern-day MacCarthyism" after the newspaper covered an interaction between Sandmann and his classmates and Native American activists on the National Mall last winter.

In the viral video, Sandmann appears to be wearing a Make America Great Again hat while smirking and staring down an older Native American man as he sings and beats a drum. The interaction hit a nerve on social media and Sandmann was castigated for apparently intimidating a person of color.

The Covington students later said they were first accosted by hecklers while waiting to leave the Mall, causing tensions to rise. When a group of Native American activists from the Indigenous Peoples March that day approached them, Sandmann said he tried to stay motionless to keep the situation calm.

Bertelsman conceded that may have been the case, but said Phillips' account "may have been erroneous, but ... they are opinion protected by the First Amendment."

Bertelsman also dismissed Sandmann's wider targeting on social media being taken into account.

"And while unfortunate, it is further irrelevant that Sandmann was scorned on social media," Bertelsman wrote.