The New York Times' Editorial Page Editor James Bennet has resigned after the publication of an editorial by Sen. Tom Cotton advocating that the military be deployed to end racial injustice protests throughout the United States. Bennet had been the head of the Times' editorial pages since 2016.
The Times faced immediate and furious backlash for publishing the op-ed, including from within the Times itself. After repeatedly defending the decision to run Cotton's anti-American screed, it came out that the Times' editors had themselves solicited for Cotton to make his case—and that Bennet had not even read the piece before publishing it.
The Times has long ignored critics of their editorial policies, but the internal fury over Cotton's call for "no quarter" against fellow Americans proved too much for Bennet to weather. He is expected to remain with the paper, but in a "new role in the newsroom."