The worldwide leader in sports has been engulfed in a lawsuit battle with one of their own employees--longtime SportsCenter anchor Sage Steele.
Steele sued the network in April for claiming ESPN violated her freedom of speech rights that are protected under the First Amendment.
A new update on the case was announced Thursday, via the Washington Post, the Disney-owned network is asking the Connecticut Supreme Court to dismiss the case on the grounds that Steele never stopped receiving checks from ESPN during her time off the air, thus indicating that the network never disciplined her.
The network also claims "creation and broadcast of shows qualifies as protected speech," meaning that ESPN removing Steele from broadcast and allowing employees to forego appearances with her qualifies as freedom of expression.
In a written statement from Steele's lawyer, via the New York Post, he draws comparisons between Scarlett Johansson's case with Disney and Steele's case while also calling out the leadership at the company for "denigrating their talent" for their First Amendment rights and their right to privacy as an employee.
“Just as it did in the Scarlett Johansson case, Disney responds by trying to shame the person it already has victimized, disclosing facts about Sage’s salary that have nothing at all to do with their legal claims,” said Bryan Freedman, Steele’s attorney, in a written statement. “The current leadership at Disney continues to denigrate talent disregarding not only their first amendment rights but also employee privacy. The motion has no merit and will be dismissed, as should the leadership at Disney for engaging in this outrageous conduct.”
Johansson's case with Disney stems from her suing the company over royalties above her $20 million base pay after they released her movie, Black Widow on streaming rather than in theaters during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount.
The 49-year-old broadcaster's lawsuit began with an appearance she made on Jay Cutler's podcast back in September of 2021 where she made disparaging comments about the company's COVID vaccination policy, calling it “sick” and “scary." Despite her displeasure with the company's policy, Steele still got the vaccine.
She followed that up by making an even more damning remark about former President Barack Obama. Steels told Cutler that she found it “fascinating” that Obama chose to identify as black despite being raised by solely his white mother and grandmother.
Also included in her lawsuit, Steele claims that ESPN put pressure on the V Foundation, a cancer charity that was co-founded by the network, to remove the anchor as host for a fundraising event in December 2021. Norby Williamson, executive vice president and executive editor of production at ESPN, stated in an affidavit that the decision to remove Steele came from the V Foundation themselves, not ESPN. The reason he gave for Steele’s removal was due to her comments being labeled by the foundation as “anti-science” which they claim is a conflict of interest with their efforts.
Steele also alleged that ESPN removed her from their annual ESPNW Summit, which she had emceed since 2010. She was slated to label actress Halle Berry but claims that her PR team would not let her speak with Steele due to her comments on Cutler's podcast.
Related
Related
Follow Jasper Jones on Twitter: @jonesj2342
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow Audacy Sports
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram