(Newsworthy.news) – After being sued for defamation for allegedly saying racial slurs against high school athletes, a broadcaster for Oklahoma basketball has won $25 million.
The lawsuit was filed after team members knelt in protest of the United States during a high school basketball game. A local news outlet reported that Scott Sapulpa had uttered racial slurs against the protesting players, sparking a defamation lawsuit to be brought against the paper.
Sapulpa sued Gannett—the umbrella media company that oversees The Oklahoman, which ran the story accusing him of shouting racist comments—in a civil defamation action. On February 5, the jury agreed at the end of a two-week trial that Gannett was guilty of both defamation and intentionally causing emotional distress to Sapulpa.
The broadcast at the center of the lawsuit took place in March 2021, when Midwest City High School was competing against Norman High School in a playoff game. While the national anthem was being sung ahead of tipoff, some players on the Norman girls’ team went down on one knee in a recognizable and highly controversial statement in protest of the United States.
Broadcasters for the game—who were present at the time of the kneeling during the Star-Spangled Banner—included both Sapulpa and fellow broadcaster Matt Rowan. Listeners heard one of the men angrily call the kneeling girls “f***ing n*****s” and said he “hope[s] they lose” for “kneel[ing] like that.”
In their news report on the incident, The Oklahoman identified Sapulpa as the one who made the comments. Hours later, the newspaper issued a correction to the article to correctly state that Rowan, not Sapulpa, had made the remarks. Rowan later confirmed it was he who had said the offensive words and that they had been uttered amid an adverse reaction due to his diabetes.
Sapulpa still filed a lawsuit, arguing that Gannett and The Oklahoman had permanently damaged his reputation by falsely claiming he had behaved in a racist way on air.
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