British tabloid The Sun has been ordered to publicly acknowledge that an opinion piece about Meghan Markle written by “The Grand Tour” star Jeremy Clarkson was determined to be sexist.
In the December 2022 column, Clarkson declared he hated the Duchess of Sussex “on a cellular level,” and wrote that he was “dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”
After an investigation, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) determined that Clarkson’s opinion piece had breached anti-discrimination regulations.
IPSO chairman Lord Faulks said in the decision that the article was “humiliating and degrading towards the duchess,” and ordered The Sun to publish a front-page statement explaining in detail how Clarkson had breached those rules, which must also be featured on its website.
READ MORE: Jeremy Clarkson Column About Meghan Markle Sparks Tide Of Criticism
In the statement, The Sun shares IPSO’s conclusion that Clarkson’s column was sexist in tone, determining that Clarkson made a “pejorative and prejudicial” reference to her sex.
“The Code protects the right to shock and challenge, but not to discriminate against individuals,” the statement reads. “IPSO therefore set aside the question of whether the article was offensive. IPSO therefore found that the column included a number of references which, taken together, amounted to a pejorative and prejudicial reference to the Duchess of Sussex’s sex in breach of the Editors’ Code,” the statement noted.
“This is the most significant sanction that we would impose for an individual complaint,” IPSO CEO Charlotte Dewar told Variety.
“It’s not about whether or not people are offended by something or whether they dislike it; it’s specifically about whether it has breached the Editors’ Code,” Dewar continued. “We wanted to be really, really clear about what specifically the complainants thought in the article had breached the code, and then — as a fair process requires — get the publication’s position on that.”
As Variety pointed out, IPSO received more than 25,100 complaints about Clarkson’s column, a number that broke the organization’s record for the most complaints ever received for a single article.
When the issue hit newsstands, however, numerous people took to social media to share a photo of The Sun‘s front page, pointing to a small, barely negligible line of copy at the bottom of the page, beneath an advertisement for wine — hardly what some would consider to be a “significant” punishment.
IPSO "punishment" for The Sun printing Jeremy Clarkson's sexist and racist rant against Meghan Markle, The Duchess of Sussex, was a front page acknowledgement.
Can you stop it? pic.twitter.com/BPtsNJGmqm
— Alexis (@ArchewellBaby) July 1, 2023
Following the furor, Clarkson was fired from his job hosting “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
The Sun issued an apology to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex; however, a spokesperson for Harry and Meghan dismissed the apology as nothing more than “a PR stunt.”
“The fact that The Sun has not contacted the Duchess of Sussex to apologize shows their intent. This is nothing more than a PR stunt,” the spokesperson said. “While the public absolutely deserves the publication’s regrets for their dangerous comments, we wouldn’t be in this situation if The Sun did not continue to profit off and exploit hate, violence and misogyny. A true apology would be a shift in their coverage and ethical standards for all. Unfortunately, we’re not holding our breath.”
READ MORE: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Dismiss Jeremy Clarkson’s Public Apology
A subsequent personal apology from Clarkson received a similar response.
“While a new public apology has been issued today by Mr. Clarkson, what remains to be addressed is his long standing pattern of writing articles that spread hate rhetoric, dangerous conspiracy theories, and misogyny,” the spokesperson stated. “Unless each of his other pieces were also written ‘in a hurry,’ as he states, it is clear that this is not an isolated incident shared in haste, but rather a series of articles shared in hate.”
