Navajo Times says former cartoonist’s lawsuit dismissed with prejudice

The lawsuit filed by former contributing cartoonist Jack Ahasteen against Navajo Times Publishing Co. Inc. was dismissed with prejudice, a ruling that closes the case and blocks the same claim from being refiled in its current form. For a Window Rock newsroom that serves Apache County and the wider Navajo Nation, the decision ends a public dispute that could have kept consuming time, money and attention inside one of the region’s most visible media institutions.

That matters because the fight reached beyond a single personnel break. It touched the Navajo Times’ relationship with a longtime contributor, the paper’s editorial identity and the public trust that follows a tribal newsroom when a creative voice and the publication part ways in court. The paper said it remained committed to serving the Navajo Nation and providing independent journalism to readers and advertisers, signaling that the legal cloud over this particular filing has now lifted.

Ahasteen’s history with the paper explains why the dispute drew such attention in the first place. The Navajo Times said in June 2024 that he was separating from the publication after 52 years. His final work, “Treaty Day,” ran in the May 30, 2024 edition, capping a career in which he drew thousands of editorial cartoons and illustrations. The paper identified him as coming from Teesto, Arizona, and said he is Tódích’íi’nii, born for Táchii’nii, with maternal grandfather Tábąąhá and paternal grandfather Tséńjíkiní.

The break also spilled into public view at the Navajo Nation level. President Buu Nygren proclaimed June 12, 2024, as Jack Ahasteen Day and said, “The Navajo Times is not the Navajo Times without Jack Ahasteen.” The Navajo Nation release said Ahasteen told Facebook followers he had asked the newspaper to renegotiate his pay and had created Ahasteen Graphics, LLC. It also said he first was hired as an illustrator by the Navajo Times in 1972 by the late reporter and editor Bill Donovan.

Online protest and objection followed his departure, underscoring how deeply rooted his work had become in the paper’s visual identity. The Navajo Times has described itself as the largest Native American newspaper in the country, and Ahasteen’s cartoons have long been part of its comics section. With the dismissal now entered, the immediate legal fight is over, leaving the publication to move forward without a case that had tied its newsroom, its contributors and its public standing together in court.