Sage Steele declines settlement offer from ESPN, will proceed with free speech lawsuit

ESPN has offered to settle a lawsuit with Sage Steele, however the veteran SportsCenter anchor plans to decline the offer, according to Front Office Sports.

In April 2022, Steele filed suit against ESPN and parent company Walt Disney, alleging that the network had violated her First Amendment rights as well as free-speech rights in the state of Connecticut, where ESPN is primarily located. 

The lawsuit stems from comments Steele made on a podcast with former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler in September 2021 where she made several controversial comments which led to what she considered a suspension. 

Per Yahoo! Sports at the time, Steele expressed a supposed fear of the company's COVID-19 mandate:

“I work for a company that mandates it and I had until Sept. 30 to get it done or I’m out. I respect everyone’s decision, I really do, but to mandate it is sick and it’s scary to me in many ways. I just, I’m not surprised it got to this point, especially with Disney, I mean a global company like that.

Steele also questioned the racial identity of former President Barack Obama in context of the U.S. Census and reasoned that some female journalists dress provocatively for attention.

Steele apologized for the comments and ESPN issued a statement saying that conversations with her about the controversy remained private. Yet she claimed that she was suspended for two days, something ESPN denied. ESPN has suspended others in the past for controversial statements, most infamously former personality Jemele Hill and one-time analyst and former MLB pitcher Curt Schilling.

Steele's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, explained to Front Office Sports why her client won't accept the settlement:

“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.

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?”

While the fervor has died down from its peak, ESPN has sat in the middle of a culture war for several years, most notably since the 2016 NFL season and Colin Kaepernick's kneeling during the national anthem. Back then, many of the network's most prominent Black and minority personalities had spoken up about Kaepernick's protest as well as those taking place before and after his decision, aiming to show how sports and politics have always been intertwined. Many fans and politicians, including former President Donald Trump, lambasted the network because they believe sports should be apolitical.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the renewed social justice movement in the aftermath of several police killings replaced the Kaepernick saga as the center of the sports and politics debate. Steele, who was outspoken about the athlete protests, remains an active contrarian voice (at least on Twitter and not on-air) about certain issues. However, ESPN and Disney have not acted against other statements and endorsements of hers that can be considered controversial, likely due to the ongoing litigation.

The trial is set to take place next March.