Jazmine Hughes, an award-winning staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, resigned from the publication on Friday after violating newsroom policies by signing a letter expressing support for the Palestinians and protesting Israel’s siege of Gaza.
Jake Silverstein, editor of The New York Times Magazine, announced Hughes’ resignation in an email to staff members Friday night.
“While I respect that she has strong beliefs, this was a clear violation of The Times’ policy on public protests,” Silverstein wrote. “This policy, which I fully support, is an important part of our commitment to independence.”
Silverstein said Hughes had previously violated policy by signing another public letter this year. That letter, which was also signed by other Times contributors, protested the newspaper’s reporting on transgender issues.
“She and I discussed that her desire to hold this type of public position and join public protests is not compatible with being a journalist at The Times, and we both concluded that she should resign,” Silverstein wrote. in his note on Friday.
Ms. Hughes declined to comment. A Times spokeswoman had no further comment.
Ms. Hughes joined The Times in 2015 and worked as an editor and writer for the magazine. In 2020, she won the American Society of Magazine Editors’ Next Award for journalists under 30. This year, she won a National Magazine Award for profile writing, for articles on Viola Davis and Whoopi Goldberg.
He petition Ms Hughes’ byline on the war between Israel and Hamas was posted online last week by a group called Writers Against the War in Gaza. The group, which describes itself as “an ad hoc coalition committed to the solidarity and liberation horizon of the Palestinian people,” denounced what it described as Israel’s “eliminationist attack” against the Palestinians, as well as the death of journalists reporting on the war. It was signed by hundreds of people, including other well-known journalists and authors.
“We firmly support the people of Gaza,” the letter said.
On Friday, a contributing writer for the magazine who had also signed the letter, Jamie Lauren Keiles, said in a post on X that she would no longer contribute to the publication. She said it was “a personal decision about what kind of work I want to be able to do.”