Mariel Garza, chief editor at L.A. Times tendered her resignation on Wednesday after the newspaper’s owner declined to issue a presidential endorsement for Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Patrick Soon-Shiong acquired the L.A. Times in 2018 for $500 million.

In her resignation letter published by the Columbia Journalism Review, Ms Garza said Mr Soon-Shiong’s unbended refusal to allow the paper endorse Ms Harris in the two-horse race subtly reeked of racism and sexism.

She told the Columbia Journalism Review that her resignation was some sort of protest in that honest people like herself should not be silent in dangerous times, particularly with the elections less than two weeks away.

“I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up,” Ms Garza said in the interview. “This is how I’m standing up.”

The paper’s editorial board scheduled to publish an endorsement for Ms Harris’s presidential ambition in a plan that was now shelved after Mr Soon-Shiong demurred to it. The endorsement was to guide and sway U.S. citizens into voting Ms Harris for president.

But Mr Soon-Shiong opposed Ms Garza’s narrative, clarifying misconceptions about the endorsement controversy in a social media post.

He explained that the editorial board had not followed explicit instructions directing staff members to “draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation.”

He also asked the editorial board to provide detailed analysis of the plans and policies made by Donald Trump and Ms Harris during campaign and its projected effect on the U.S. in the next four years.

The article, according to Mr Soon-Shiong, would help readers decide who was worthy of occupying the White House.

“This way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years,” he wrote on X.

Instead of doing as directed, Mr Soon-Shiong said the L.A. editorial board kept mum.

“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision,” the paper‘s owner wrote, imploring people to “please #vote.”

Ms Harris supporters have since swarmed the comment section of Mr Soon-Shiong’s post, accusing him of meddling in the paper’s editorial matters and posted cancellations of their L.A. Times subscriptions.