Head coach Troy Taylor of the Stanford Cardinal walks on to the field before the second half of a game against the San Jose State Spartans on Nov. 29, 2024, at CEFCU Stadium in San Jose, Calif.

Former Stanford head football coach Troy Taylor filed a lawsuit against ESPN and reporter Xuan Thai on Wednesday for defamation, alleging that multiple articles about how the university investigated the coach’s behavior influenced the decision to fire him in March.

Taylor’s attorneys argue that an article published March 19 headlined, “Reports find Stanford’s Taylor bullied, belittled female staffers,” was not only “false and defamatory,” but they also allege that ESPN and Thai published this reporting with “false” statements despite the fact that the defendants “knew them to be false at the time they were made.”

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