Felicia Sonmez fired by The Washington Post

The Washington Post has fired Felicia Sonmez after the well-known reporter complained publicly about a perceived lack of institutional willingness to confront misogynistic treatment of female staffers.

The news was first reported by The Daily Beast and confirmed by a source with knowledge of the decision. The Washington Post did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Sonmez's firing comes days after the paper suspended a fellow reporter, Dave Weigel, for a month after he retweeted a crude joke about women.

Sonmez was highly critical of Weigel for the tweet, prompting WaPo Executive Editor Sally Buzbee to put out a memo encouraging staff members to treat one another with respect and kindness, including on social media platforms, and reminding staff that criticizing fellow employees was a violation of company policies.

“We do not tolerate colleagues attacking colleagues either face to face or online,” the paper’s top editor said in a memo on Tuesday.

But the infighting continued to spill out into public view from there. Another Post reporter, Jose A. Del Real, accused Sonmez of trying to publicly bully Weigel over a mistake for which he had apologized. Sonmez responded in kind: “When women stand up for themselves, some people respond with even more vitriol.”

Sonmez continued to rail against the paper’s leadership from there, with lengthy threads arguing that it had done little to create an inclusive culture or protect reporters from internal and external harassment.

It was a continuation of years of grievances she has publicly aired. Last year, Sonmez filed a lawsuit against the paper after it prohibited her from covering stories related to sexual assault and misconduct, citing her previous high-profile statements condemning harassment and mistreatment. The suit was dismissed by a D.C. judge earlier this year, saying Sonmez had not proved that the Post showed a “discriminatory motive.”