NY Times Media Columnist Ben Smith: Don McNeil Told Student ‘Racism is Over’

Former New York Times science and coronavirus reporter Don McNeil told a high school student on a Times-sponsored trip in 2019 that “racism is over” and that African Americans “can get out of the ghetto,” according to a report from Times media columnist Ben Smith.

During a conversation with student Sophie Shepherd on the Times’ 2019 Student Journeys trip to Peru, McNeil reportedly said to Shepherd that “Black Americans keep blaming the system, but racism is over, there’s nothing against them anymore – they can get out of the ghetto if they want to.”

The alleged remarks came when Shepherd, then 17, told McNeil about her favorite class at elite boarding school Phillips Academy Andover, a course about the history of American education that included coverage of racial discrimination. McNeil reportedly found the topic “frustrating.”

Smith’s story also sheds light on what happened behind the scenes after the Peru trip, when Times executive editor Dean Baquet read the students’ complaints about McNeil.

“[Baquet] said he initially wanted to fire McNeil,” Smith writes. “But the union played its traditional role, fighting aggressively to protect him. The union, a person involved in the conversations said, was ready to take The Times to arbitration of the company attempted to terminate Mr. McNeil for his conduct on the trip. Mr. McNeil received a formal reprimand instead.”

McNeil left the Times following a Daily Beast report about McNeil’s alleged use of the n-word and other, racially insensitive, language on the trip, and an internal backlash from Times staffers to Baquet’s initial handling of the issue.