Longtime ESPN anchor Sage Steele has reportedly filed a lawsuit against her current employer, claiming that the sports behemoth has violated her Constitutional right to freedom of speech.
Steele alleges that she was punished for controversial remarks she made on former NFL player Jay Cutler’s podcast, “Uncut With Jay Cutler,” where she questioned why former President Barack Obama would identify himself as “Black” instead of “biracial.”
Steele is the product of an interracial marriage. She is married to a White man.
She also hammered the COVID-19 protocols going on in many parts of America last year, and she also said females who dressed provocatively were to blame when athletes made inappropriate remarks to them.
Steele immediately left the air on ESPN, but that was due to her contracting the novel coronavirus, and having to observe quarantine requirements of her company and state (Connecticut). ESPN, however, did order Steele to apologize for her comments on Cutler’s podcast.
According to Sports Illustrated, Steele said that since her public remarks, she has not gotten the juicy assignments she once did or thought she deserves at ESPN. Additionally, Steele believes that as a result of her comments, she was reassigned from anchoring the prime-time hours beginning at 6 p.m. to the noon shift.
The suit also claims that 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.”
ESPN refutes Steele’s accounts of the circumstances.
“Sage remains a valued contributor on some of ESPN’s highest-profile content, including the recent Masters telecasts and anchoring our noon “SportsCenter.” As a point of fact, she was never suspended.”
