ESPN commentator Jemele Hill called the president a white supremacist the other day. After some consideration, the network has apparently decided to let her keep her job. The PR team shared the following statement late Tuesday.
ESPN Statement on Jemele Hill: pic.twitter.com/3kfexjx9zQ
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) September 12, 2017
Critics have pointed out that Hill is keeping her job despite former conservative commentators losing theirs over less egregious rhetoric. Curt Schilling, a former baseball pitcher-turned ESPN analyst, weighed in on the debate about bathroom laws in North Carolina last year and was shown the door almost instantly.
Schilling was commenting on a policy. Hill was directly slandering the president. She didn't just call him a white supremacist. In other Twitter rants, she referred to him as a bigot, unqualified and unfit. Those were the "facts," she told her social media critics.
Former ESPN writer Jason Whitlock responded to the network's decision on Fox News Wednesday, regretting that producers have "clearly condoned" her behavior.
"I think that ESPN has chosen a lane politically," Whitlock said. "[ESPN President] John Skipper has certainly made diversity in his view a business innovation for ESPN and has moved the company to the left. So I think no action here against Jemele Hill is a clear sign that they're in agreement."
Schilling fans would certainly agree.
How much more of Hill's rhetoric is ESPN going to let slide?
Remember @espn fired @gehrig38 for mocking North Carolina's transgender bathroom bill on Facebook. But insult the president all you want!
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 12, 2017