ESPN anchor Sage Steele turned down a $501,000 settlement offer from her employer, standing firmly on her opinion that her right to free speech was violated by the network.
Steele filed a claim against ESPN and its parent company Walk Disney Co. in 2022 after comments she made about the company’s vaccine mandate led to her suspension. Alleging that her First Amendment rights were infringed upon, the SportsCenter co-host says the network’s offer will not suffice for the damage done to her career and reputation.
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Steele’s attorney added that a financial award is secondary to the primary issue at hand — Disney’s quest to muzzle opposing perspectives, according to Front Office Sports.
“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,” Bryan Freedman said. “The offer misses the point. Disney cannot purchase their employee’s constitutional rights no matter how powerful they think they are.”
In the lawsuit, Steele alleges that she was punished by ESPN for comments she made while appearing on former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler‘s podcast, where she called the network’s vaccine mandate “sick and scary.” The 50-year-old says she was suspended for two days and “forced to issue” an apology or possibly be faced with termination. Her lawsuit also specifies the company’s indifference regarding employees who openly mocked her and demanded her suspension.
“Though Defendants based their punitive actions against Steele on a supposed workplace policy barring political commentary, they repeatedly have ignored commentary from other employees — both before and after they penalized Steele for expressing her opinion — that was more political and more controversial than the comments made by Steele, and that in some cases was overtly disrespectful to Steele,” the suit claims.
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