Black woman seeks $1.5M in damages from neo-Nazi site founder
This week, American University,'s first black female Student Government President, Taylor Dumpson filed a $1.8 million dollar lawsuit again the man that fueled a hate-targeted campaign against her.
This week, American University,'s first black female Student Government President, Taylor Dumpson filed a $1.8 million dollar lawsuit again the man that fueled a hate-targeted campaign against her.
This week, American University,’s first black female Student Government President, Taylor Dumpson filed a $1.8 million dollar lawsuit again the man that fueled a hate-targeted campaign against her.
Dumpson sued The Daily Stormer publisher, Andrew Anglin, last April, but there was no response, NBC News reports. The Daily Stormer is a reader-funded website and message board advocating Neo-Nazi and anti-semitic beliefs. In a court filing Monday, Dumpson’s attorneys requested a default judgment of more than $1.8 million in damages, fees and costs, including $1.5 million in punitive damages against Anglin and his company, Moonbase Holdings LLC.
Anglin’s website takes its name from a newspaper that published pro-Hitler propaganda in Nazi-era Germany. The site once mocked the woman who was killed when a car plowed into her during the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.
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Dumpson’s lawsuit accuses Anglin of directing his site’s readers to cyberbully her after her May 2017 Presidential inauguration. She initially sued Anglin and two other people who harassed her online with racially-charged messages, but reached a settlement last year with Oregon resident Evan James McCarty. Anglin and the other defendant, Brian Andrew Ade, were not involved in the settlement but failed to respond to the lawsuit, which is why Dumpson’s attorneys previously asked the federal court in Washington, D.C. to enter default judgments against them, according to The Associated Press.
Dumpson’s case against Anglin is one of two federal lawsuits filed by a Muslim-American radio host and a Jewish real estate agent in Montana who had their lives upturned after he reportedly harassed them online with racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric. Anglin faces possible default judgments in those cases as well.
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In her suit, Dumpson says she suffers with post-traumatic stress disorder and “feels constantly afraid and on edge,” the AP reports.
“It’s one of the first things I think about in the morning and one of the last things I think about when I go to sleep,” she said.
Dumpson hopes her legal case to “hold people accountable for their bigoted actions.” She believes the partial settlement “could raise awareness of issues of racial justice, while also providing for educational benefits.”
