Josh Neighbors tweeted a video Wednesday night explaining that he'd been fired as host of the "Locked On Big 12" podcast for including the remarks former Cincinnati Bearcats and current West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Bob Huggins made during an interview with Bill Cunningham on 700 WLW, which included slurs Huggins used multiple times.
Neighbors said he played Huggins' unedited remarks during the podcast to offer context and condemn the slurs Huggins used, but Neighbors was told that he violated the company's zero-tolerance policy with regard to hate speech.
Huggins' salary was reduced by $1 million, and he was suspended for three games. He'll be required to meet with LGBTQ+ leaders.
"I made the conscious decision to play Bob Huggins' comments in their entirety, and also without censoring the slurs that he used," Neighbors said in the video. "I did that because I thought it was important to play and get the full context of what he had said. I followed that up by saying I thought was he had said was abhorrent. I thought it was hateful. And also I said that if I were the AD, I would have fired him and I would not want somebody like that espousing his views, coaching my team. The folks at Locked On felt differently. They felt because I was willingly posting hate speech, which I did, I was not using the hate speech; I was obviously trying to combat it and say it's terrible and awful and should not happen. But to play it and give the full context and give the folks a chance to hear it all, I did make the choice to play that. The company sent me an email this evening, telling me that they were locking me out of the accounts. They were going to decide my future. I did not get a chance to speak to the decision-makers. They did call me. … The decision though had already been made. So it was a very difficult conversation. I understand they have their rules. I might disagree with them. But if there's a zero-tolerance policy on hate speech, whether you are decrying it or you're using it, that it their prerogative. … I thought I was using my platform to combat the hate speech, to say it's unacceptable, to play it in its entirety to give the effect of, 'Oh my God, that was reckless, careless and hateful,' and it did not matter to the folks at Locked On."
UC joins the Big 12 this summer. Huggins, the Bearcats' head coach from 1989 to 2005, said in March that the teams joining the conference have "no idea what they're getting into."
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