Reporter Sued AP for Bias, Changing Its Hiring

Former AP reporter Marlene Louise Johnson, whose lawsuit against the wire service for race and gender discrimination led to affirmative action plans to spur hiring of female, Black, and Hispanic journalists, has died at 89. Johnson died May 9 in a Los Angeles-area care facility, the AP reports. She had been suffering from dementia, according to her daughter, Morenike Joela Evans. Born in Rochester, New York, Johnson earned an associate's degree from the University of Buffalo and a bachelor's degree at Wayne State University in Detroit. At the age of 75, she graduated from Howard University's School of Divinity with a master's degree in religious studies.

Johnson was hired in 1972 as a general assignment reporter in the AP's Detroit bureau. She covered stories on Black capitalism, court-ordered busing in Detroit's public schools, tensions between the predominately white police department and the city's Black residents, breast cancer screening, and women empowerment in business and culture. Johnson, who was Black, sued the global news organization for race and gender discrimination the year after she joined. She had been hired as part of a minority hiring program meant to bring diverse talent to the AP—but after several months on the job, Johnson claimed she had received no training. She also believed she was being held to a performance standard different from her white, male counterparts. "What the suit was about originally was racism," Johnson said in a 2013 interview with the nonprofit History Makers.

She said the the Newspaper Guild helped her file the suit, which later became a class-action claim involving several other female minority journalists. The suit was settled about decade later in 1983 for more than $1 million. Johnson was not listed as one of the plaintiffs. Under the agreement, which involved the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the AP was required to establish affirmative action plans for female journalists, as well as Black and Hispanic journalists. "The suit turned from all Black and one white (plaintiff), to all white and one Black (plaintiff)," Johnson recalled in the interview. "And the one Black—the one that went to the civil suit—they took my name off and put another woman's name on it. A Black woman who I had never heard of before."

The seven women listed as plaintiffs shared $83,120, according to a 2019 NewsGuild International article. The settlement included provisions for training and bonuses for AP's minority and female journalists. "I wasn't in it for the money," Johnson said, also noting that she couldn't find jobs in the journalism industry for some time after filing her lawsuit. Johnson later moved to Washington, where she worked for the Newspaper Guild, the National Urban League, and the National 4-H Council. She also worked with the White House Council on Aging and was part of the press office for Jimmy Carter's inauguration committee, according to her obituary. "She loved being a reporter, a journalist," her daughter said. "She was really an advocate for people and telling the truth."