Maria Taylor Leaves ESPN Following Rachel Nichols Workplace Diversity Comments
Maria Taylor/ NBAE via Getty Images
By: Prince Hakeem
Over the past week, sports news giant ESPN has been embroiled in controversy due to messy internal conflict within its talent ranks. Veteran NBA broadcaster and host Rachel Nichols has been at the center, thanks to an exposé article by the New York Times. The story details the fallout after audio of Nichols making disparaging comments concerning colleague and rising star Maria Taylor made its way around the company. The incident took place over a year ago during the 2020 NBA Finals.
Nichols, who is white, was speaking to a longtime adviser to LeBron James and his agent Rich Paul, Adam Mendelsohn. She voiced frustration over ESPN replacing her as the coverage host for the Finals. As Nichols understood it, the company felt pressure to highlight "diversity" amid the summer George Floyd protests and wanted to give the job to Maria Taylor. Nichols effectively threw Taylor under the bus by suggesting she only got the assignment because she is black.
"I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world - she covers football, she covers basketball, Nichols said. If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity — which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it, like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away."
Thinking her camera was off, Nichols' phone call with Mendelsohn was picked up. (She was in Orlando in the NBA Bubble.) The recording went to servers back at ESPN HQ in Bristol, Connecticut. It was essentially a pandemic version of a "hot mic" moment. One I'm sure Rachel desperately wishes she could take back.
The fallout from the incident and, subsequently, its handling have been a bad look for everyone involved. Nichol's reputation has taken a significant hit; a smear campaign aimed at Maria Taylor as she negotiates a new contract. (There has been speculation that Taylor, or "her people," leaked the audio as leverage.) And ESPN's incompetence and mismanagement of the situation is the crux of the story. Rachel Nichols will continue to bear the brunt of the backlash long after everyone moves. It makes sense in her case. Her broadcasting career has greatly benefitted from having proximity to black men in the NBA.
Rachel Nichols speaks on ESPN
Along with many white people in sports media, she's also has positioned herself as an "ally" of social justice and diversity. Thus making her comments about Taylor that more hypocritical and egregious. She supports diversity publicly, yet not at her expense. This kind of two-face pantomime is not just exclusive to sports entertainment. For black professionals across several industries, the Nichols-Taylor story confirms suspicions of white people's secret resentment and cognitive dissonance. It also says no matter the work ethic, ability, or experience, black talent is just a glorified work-study for companies to market themselves as woke and progressive.
Now it's time to fight back against this passive-aggressive practice within the workplace culture. There are some simple yet profound ways to do this. For one, merit still matters. As black professionals, creatives, and so on, we are often the source of innovation. The work speaks for itself. It will always have the last say. Secondly, as a community, we are stronger together than in isolation. We constantly see each other and the work put in. So reach out to and lean into the spaces where you are validated, not just tolerated.
Maria Taylor encapsulates these sentiments in her first response since the controversy broke. She tweeted,
“During the dark times I always remember that I am in this position to open doors and light the path that others walk down. I’ve taken some punches, but that just means I’m still in the fight. Remember to lift as you climb and always KEEP RISING.”
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