The Times Guild, the newsroom union representing nearly 1,500 journalists at the paper, filed a formal grievance yesterday with the paper, saying The Times had violated the terms of its contract. The guild accused top news executives of “targeted interrogation” of journalists of Middle Eastern descent in an investigation of how word of such dissent leaked to The Intercept and other news outlets.

Over the weekend, Executive Editor Joe Kahn and his two top deputies confirmed they had commissioned a leak investigation – itself an extraordinary act for a news organization often reliant on leaks of sensitive material for its own stories. (Several former veteran Times journalists told NPR they were taken aback by the turn of events.)

“Revealing editing drafts, reporter notes or other confidential materials to outside media erodes trust and undermines our culture of collaboration,” Kahn wrote, along with managing editors Marc Lacey and Carolyn Ryan. “No one in our newsroom or company has been or will be scrutinized because of ethnic or national origin… Any such thing would be deeply offensive to us and the Guild’s accusation is wrong.”