ESPN Fires Curt Schilling For "Unacceptable" Conduct

ESPN issued a short statement Wednesday:

ESPN is an inclusive company. Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated.

ESPN's actions against Schilling, who has a long history of racist Facebook posts, was overdue, but very welcome.

Kevin Draper, Deadspin:

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.

Finally, ESPN decided they'd had enough. Why is an interesting question.

Cyd Zeigler, OutSports:

To be clear, Schilling's offense was not having a political opinion, it was expressing himself with a Facebook share and a comment that was demeaning to an entire class of people under attack in our culture today. He could have offered a thoughtful perspective and, like his family has suggested, admitted a lack of understanding of issues. Instead, he used a disgusting display, followed up by blaming everyone who was offended and refusing to back down. ...

Schilling couldn't have been more of a jerk about it. And frankly, I'm thrilled for people like [Christina] Kahrl, a trans baseball editor at ESPN, who knows she'll never have to work with Schilling ever again.

Naturally, Schilling, who initially denied posting what he posted, defended himself on his blog ("The Hunt To Be Offended..."), calling the matter "some sort of faux cause":

Let's make one thing clear right up front. If you get offended by ANYTHING in this post, that's your fault, all yours.

I'm not a religious man, but I pray that Schilling's children and nieces and nephews and grandchildren all live the most bland, white bread lives. Because if any of them is "different" in any way, I would imagine living with Schilling's ignorant judgment would be hell. ... And if Schilling somehow reads this post and is in ANY WAY offended by my comment, that's his fault, all his.