Shirley Sherrod has filed a lawsuit against Andrew Breitbart over a video released by the conservative personality that lead to her ouster as an official at the USDA.
Breitbart was served on Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), according to the New York Times: "In the suit, which was filed in Washington on Friday, Ms. Sherrod says the video has damaged her reputation and prevented her from continuing her work."
The video first gained widespread public attention when it was posted on Breitbart's BigGovernment.com. The two-minute, 38-second clip was widely received as an admission by Sherrod, who is African American, that she had discriminated against a white farmer. Under immediate pressure from the Obama administration, Sherrod resigned from her position as the USDA's director of rural development in Georgia.
When a full 43-minute copy of the video surfaced, additional context turned the story into one of reconciliation. Sherrod had actually saved the man's farm and started a lifelong friendship. The NAACP, which publicly condemned Sherrod's speech shortly after it was posted on BigGovernment.com, soon issued a retraction and said that they were "snookered."
The White House also begged for forgiveness and offered her a "unique opportunity." Sherrod declined the offer to return to the Agriculture Department.
A statement issued on his website says Breitbart "categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech and, to reiterate, looks forward to exercising his full and broad discovery rights." The statement also says that Larry O'Connor, the head of Breitbart.tv, was named in the suit.