(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) Sage Steele has reportedly turned down $500,000 to settle her lawsuit against Disney-owned ESPN.
In April 2022, the SportsCenter anchor sued both woke corporations in Connecticut Superior Court for allegedly violating her free-speech rights after she publicly spoke against Disney’s COVID-19 employee vaccine mandate.
The longtime ESPN broadcaster, 50, is being represented by a Connecticut law firm as well as high-powered Los Angeles attorney Bryan Freedman, who also represents heavy hitters like Tucker Carlson in employment disputes.
In the context of the proposed settlement, Freedman called out Disney for its hypocrisy when it comes to freedom of speech.
“Disney and ESPN clearly admit their liability by offering to pay Sage Steele more than half a million dollars for taking away her right to free speech. The offer misses the point. Disney cannot purchase their employee’s constitutional rights no matter how powerful they think they are,” his statement declared.
“How about apologizing and treating people fairly? Let me put it this way, would Disney be willing to accept money from the state of Florida and Governor DeSantis in exchange for being silenced? Why the double standard?”
Steele, who reluctantly complied with the corporate jab edict, allegedly got into trouble when she told former NFL QB Jay Cutler on his podcast that the policy, rather than allowing people to make their own individual healthcare decisions, was “scary” and “sick.”
During the same interview, Steele — who is biracial — made some controversial remarks about how Barack Obama identifies himself, which apparently also displeased corporate execs.
On ESPN’s vaccine mandate, Sage Steele said mandates are “sick” and “scary,” but wasn’t “surprised it got to this point with Disney, a global company.” pic.twitter.com/SoBabFgldF
— Resist Programming 🛰 (@RzstProgramming) October 3, 2021
Connecticut, where ESPN headquarters is located, has a law on the books, General Statues §31-51q, that protects employees from any workplace disciplinary action for exercising their free-speech rights under the U.S. or state constitution.
The parties to the lawsuit disagree over whether Steele was actually suspended for her comments.
“In a knee-jerk reaction, ESPN and Disney relied on the misleading characterizations
of her comments, bowed to groupthink and forced Steele to publicly apologize and suspended her for a period of time in October 2021,” the 16-page lawsuit contends.
ESPN supposedly has a no-politics policy under its current president Jimmy Pitaro, but that does not seem to apply to the channel’s woke anchors who on various occasions have pushed a left-wing narrative during the cable channel’s programs.
Sage Steele’s lawsuit mentions some of those instances.
“Countless numbers of Steele’s on-air peers continue in a sustained pattern spanning many years of plainly engaging in public commentary on political matters, but none of them faced any discipline whatsoever for doing so. IF ESPN truly embraced inclusion and diversity, it would embrace diversity of opinions,” the lawsuit asserted in that context.
The lawsuit also delves into other aspects of alleged unfair treatment at the so-called Worldwide Leader in Sports.
In addition to alleging free-speech violations, the legal complaint accuses both defendants of breach of contract, bad-faith conduct, and both negligent and intentional infliction of emotion distress. She is also seeking a formal court ruling that ESPN and Disney violated state law as it pertains to free speech.
ESPN has lost a significant amount of viewership in the past number of years with a combination of cord-cutting plus alienating a portion of its audience with lectures about social justice, the latter as alluded to in the lawsuit.
Another round of Disney-ordered layoffs is also reportedly imminent at ESPN.
Several on-air personalities have already announced their departure in this latest headcount reduction.
In putting forth the settlement offer, ESPN specifically denied any liability. This is a a standard disclaimer when a defendant decides to pony up some cash to make a case go away rather than endure the time and expense of further litigation.
The case, if it doesn’t settle on other terms before then, reportedly has a March 2024 trial date.
In the meantime, Steele is still regularly anchoring on SportsCenter.
