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ESPN filed a motion to the Connecticut Superior Court on Thursday to dismiss SportsCenter anchor Sage Steele’s lawsuit against the company, according to The Washington Post.
In April, Steele filed a lawsuit suing her employer ESPN and its parent company, Walt Disney Co., after alleging that the company treated her unfairly for comments she made on a podcast interview last September, specifically saying that the company breached her contract and violated her free-speech rights.
In ESPN’s filing, the company said that Steele could not prove that ESPN punished her in any way following comments she made last September on former quarterback Jay Cutler’s podcast, Uncut with Jay Cutler. ESPN did not decrease her pay after the incident, for example. The 49-year-old also continues to anchor the noon SportsCenter show on ESPN. Additionally, the company admitted that is it not their fault for how any of Steele’s co-workers may have reacted to what she said.
“Removing Steele from broadcasts, allowing her co-workers to forgo appearing with her, and allegedly conditioning her return to those broadcasts on her issuing an apology are casting decisions that are considered conduct furthering ESPN’s protected expression,” the filing read.
Steele’s interview comments included her questioning COVID-19 vaccine mandates, along with making comments about former president Barack Obama identifying as Black instead of biracial. She also said female sports journalists are partly to blame for athletes making inappropriate comments about them if they dress a specific way.
Following the interview, Steele tested positive for COVID-19, causing her to go off air while recovering. ESPN required the anchor to issue an apology for her comments.
“Steele’s comments upset several of her colleagues,” the company’s motion said. “She may be unhappy that her co-workers disliked what she said, but ‘personality conflicts at work that generate antipathy and snubbing by ... co-workers will not meet th[e] standard’ for discipline.”
ESPN’s motion on Thursday also answered some of the specific questions Steele brought up in her lawsuit, starting with why some of her assignments were taken away from her. For example, she did not appear at an ESPN conference to interview Halle Berry. ESPN noted that this was because Berry’s public relations team did not want Steele to interview the actress due to the previously mentioned controversial comments.
Additionally, Steele’s duties at the V Foundation fundraiser, which supports cancer research, were taken away after the foundation believed her comments about COVID-19 were “anti-science.”
The initial reason for Steele’s lawsuit was that she believed ESPN “violated Connecticut law and Steele’s rights to free speech based upon a faulty understanding of her comments and a nonexistent, unenforced workplace policy that serves as nothing more than pretext.”
The specific law her April filing references is the Connecticut law, Sec. 31-51q., which states companies cannot discipline employees for exercising their First Amendment rights, as long as the comments do not directly impact their work performance or company. Steele argues that because her comments were made on a third-party podcast that she should be considered a private citizen in this situation.
But, on top of this, in 2017, ESPN established a rule requiring employees to refrain from commenting on political matters without a tie to sports. Steele claims her case was “selective enforcement” of this rule.
ESPN did not comment further after the motion was filed on Thursday. Steele’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, issued a statement to the Post alleging that the company leaked his client’s personal information, including her salary.
“The current leadership at Disney continues to denigrate talent disregarding not only their first amendment rights but also employee privacy,” he said. “The motion has no merit and will be dismissed, as should the leadership at Disney for engaging in this outrageous conduct.”
