ESPN fired baseball analyst Curt Schilling tonight, two days after he shared an anti-trans meme on Facebook. “ESPN is an inclusive company. Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated” said ESPN in a statement. This was far from the first time Schilling crossed a line at ESPN. Two months ago, he said Hillary Clinton “should be buried under a jail somewhere.” Three months ago, Schilling joked about being fired from ESPN for his donation to Ben Carson. Seven months ago, ESPN had nothing to say about Schilling posting insane memes on Facebook. Eight months ago, Schilling tweeted a meme comparing Muslims and Nazis, and was suspended for it. Shortly after that, he emailed a long, strange rant to a blogger to clarify his thoughts about Muslims and Nazis, and was suspended for the rest of the season.
I wrote yesterday about Curt Schilling, the former major league baseball player and now a (former) analyst at ESPN, the self-proclaimed “world-wide sports leader.” That Schilling has been a repeat offender when it comes to being patently and in some cases gratuitously offensive on social media is hardly a secret. ESPN management has been well aware of Schilling’s world-class idiocy for some time, and has chosen to condone his offensive, insulting behavior towards people and groups he disdains for quite some time. Yesterday, ESPN (finally) fired him…and a reasonable person would have to find themselves wondering what took them so long.
I take no joy in someone losing their job. Though I suspect Schilling isn’t worried about where his next Big Mac is coming from, in many cases losing a job is a crisis or at the very least legitimate cause for concern regarding one’s immediate financial future. In Schilling’s case, his behavior reflects (poorly) on his employer, and that ESPN indulged him for as long as he did makes me question their judgment. Was ESPN’s management not concerned about the divisive, hateful nature of Schilling’s diatribes? Or did they agree with him and believed there was nothing wrong with an employee saying what was on his mind regardless of how poorly it reflected on ESPN?
Schilling publicly and proudly proclaimed bigoted views on a regular basis. He posted repulsive things to Facebook nearly every day, frequently going from the repulsive to the despicable and continuously dehumanizing others. ESPN repeatedly and severely punished employees for far milder violations of its various policies, and yet Schilling just kept on spending his days degrading people who aren’t like him.
When an employer condones an employee’s offensive words and/or actions through its inaction, observers have the right to wonder what an organization stands for. Though ESPN has issued the conventionally required statements about valuing diversity and not tolerating hate speech, they’ve allowed Curt Schilling to demonstrate the inconsistency and possibly even hypocrisy of an organization which seems to have no idea how to enforce a code of conduct.
Employees have the same right to free speech any other American enjoys, but if you work as on-air talent at a media outlet like ESPN, you’re a public figure. Everything you do and/or say reflect on your employer, and as such an employee’s conduct is generally held to a higher standard. There’s a fine line between censorship and enforcing a code of conduct, but wherever that line may be, there’s little argument but that Schilling had stepped over it- WAY over it.
Perhaps Schilling will learn something from this experience, though if past is prologue I suspect whatever lessons there are to be found in this sorry saga will remain unlearned. Schilling truly seems not to give a damn about whom he offends…and in his personal life that’s a credible argument. As a public figure who’s parlayed his fame and talent into an analyst’s gig at ESPN, it’s not unreasonable to expect his words and actions to be given close scrutiny by his employers.
In the end, Curt Schilling will very likely play the victim card and claim to be the victim of persecution by Liberals and PC warriors. That is and will remain patently untrue, of course…but it sure beats the hell out of accepting personal responsibility, eh?
