Fired Stanford Coach Troy Taylor is suing ESPN for defamation for a story that reported he bullied and belittled female staffers at the school.
Taylor is alleging that ESPN writer Xuan Thai added language about harassment to her story that she knew to be false.
Taylor’s lawsuit states that Thai wrote “repeated defamatory statements about Taylor, knowing full well that the statements were false, for the purpose of smearing Taylor’s reputation and injuring him in his profession,” according to the New York Post.
The ESPN story from March 19 is headlined, Reports find Stanford’s Taylor bullied, belittled female staffers.
Taylor claimed that the story failed to account for Stanford’s investigation into the harassment, which was based on a single complaint. By April, the school concluded that there wasn’t enough evidence to find that any harassment occurred.
Still, ESPN pointed out that its story noted the “single complaint” issue but also that the investigation “included interviews with at least 20 Stanford athletic department staffers regarding four allegations against Taylor.”
Taylor was fired late in March by the then recently hired Stanford general manager Andrew Luck, who cited Taylor’s lack of progress in guiding the team to much success as the basis for releasing him. Taylor had a 3-9 record in back-to-back seasons.
“It has been clear that certain aspects of the program need change,” Luck said as he announced changes in the school’s football program. “Additionally, in recent days, there has been significant attention to Stanford investigations in previous years related to Coach Taylor. After continued consideration, it is evident to me that our program needs a reset. In consultation with university leadership, I no longer believe that Coach Taylor is the right coach to lead our football program.”
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