ESPN Pulls Robert Lee From UVA Game

Robert Lee

An Asian-American ESPN broadcaster named Robert Lee won't be working the University of Virginia's football team's season-opening game as planned because of the similarity of his name to Confederate General Robert E. Lee's in the wake of the Charlottesville violence.

The white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that led to violence and the death of a counterprotester in a car ramming attack was held because of the city's decision to remove a statue of Lee.

ESPN said in a statement, "We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name. In that moment it felt right to all parties. It's a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play-by-play for a football game has become an issue."

I'm sitting here blown away about the ESPN Robert Lee story. You can't make this shit up. Ron Burgundy is running ESPN.

— Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) August 23, 2017

ESPN said that Lee will work another game in Pittsburgh instead, and noted that assignments are switched all the time.

Wednesday morning. former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee shared a series of tweets mocking ESPN's trigger-happy decision-making.

ESPN now known as "Embarrassing Society of Politically-Correct Nutjobs."

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) August 23, 2017

ESPN will no longer air football games on TV as referees are dressed in black and white and that could be viewed as binary racism.

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) August 23, 2017

ESPN will not broadcast games of any kind from Jackson, MS for fear it might honor Stonewall or Andrew Jackson and trigger someone.

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) August 23, 2017

ESPN has been strongly criticized -- primarily in conservative circles -- for injecting political issues into sports coverage and for allegedly taking sides in various controversies.