Kirkland Hits Back on Behalf of Student Targeted by Hate Crime

Kirkland & Ellis lawyers joined with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee to file suit on behalf of a student at American University who was targeted by a hate crime.

The day after Taylor Dumpson was inaugurated as the first female African American student government president at AU last year, a masked man hung bananas inscribed with racial slurs from nooses around campus.

“After the media reported on the hate crime, a known neo-Nazi, Defendant Andrew Anglin, posted an article about Ms. Dumpson and the campus hate crime on his website, the Daily Stormer,” the complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia states. “Defendant Anglin targeted Ms. Dumpson using racist language, and directed his followers to troll storm’ Ms. Dumpson by harassing and cyberbullying her via social media.”

Dumpson is suing Anglin and his company, as well as two men who allegedly sent her “hateful, intimidating, and harassing messages.”

The suit claims violations of District of Columbia Human Rights Act of 1977, the Bias-Related Crime Act of 1989 and District of Columbia tort law.

Kirkland partners Emily Hughes and Ragan Naresh and associate Tracie Bryant are working on the case.

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