By: Scott Salomon
University of Mississippi Head Football Coach Lane Kiffin is the lead defendant in a federal court lawsuit filed by defensive lineman DeSanto Rollins for a wide variety of allegations including violations of the Americans with Disability Act of 1990, Racial Discrimination, Sexual Discrimination and violations of Rollins’ Civil Rights.
Rollins alleges that Kiffin and Ole Miss “breached the duty that it owed to him to have written institutional procedures for the referral of student-athletes with non-emergency mental health concerns.”
Rollins says in his lawsuit that the extreme treatment he received at Ole Miss constitutes a violation of the Civil Rights Act and Title IX, and he is seeking compensatory and punitive damages totaling $40 million.
“We have not received a lawsuit,” Ole Miss wrote in a statement issued through a school spokesman Thursday night. “DeSanto was never removed from the football team and remains on scholarship. In addition, he continues to have the opportunity to receive all of the resources and advantages that are afforded a student-athlete at the university.”
Kiffin declined to comment, deferring to the university’s statement.
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The Allegations
While Ole Miss claims not to have received the lawsuit, I did, and it is ugly. There are also allegations of racial discrimination and sexual discrimination coupled with the alleged ADA violations and a variety of other causes of action.
If the allegations are proven to be true, Kiffin should be terminated by the University, with any other officials that took part in the alleged abuse of rights. If Kiffin did these things, he should be heavily sanctioned by the NCAA, which has not revealed if it has opened its own investigation.
“No person should be subjected to this type of abuse when they’re suffering a mental health crisis,” said Connie Hollins, Rollins’ mother stated to an ESPN reporter. “He just wanted some time to get through his grandmother’s death. It wasn’t even spring ball yet, but I don’t care, it could’ve been the regular season.
The lawsuit further alleges that Rollins suffered from severe depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses due to an injury that he suffered to his Achilles tendon in his right foot during summer workouts in 2022. The depression and anxiety were further exacerbated when he came back to practice in August, one month later, and suffered a devastating knee injury.
In late November 2022, Rollins had an exit meeting with his Defensive Line coach Randall Joiner, who instead of trying to get him the mental health treatment that he so badly needed, pressured him to get into the transfer portal and transfer to another college to finish his education and football career.
Joyner, as alleged in the lawsuit, stated to Rollins that it would be difficult for him to play at Ole Miss because of how the university was “wired”.
Rollins continued to suffer from various mental illnesses and was requested by Joyner to meet with Kiffin.
Kiffin then told Rollins that he was being demoted to the scout team, where he would have to learn how to play offensive line, due to the fact that he would not agree to enter the transfer portal.
According to Rollins’ lawsuit, Kiffin, instead of seeing the need to get this player the mental health that he needed, yelled at him in a “hostile and verbally threatening tone” stating the other coaches were being too nice to him.
Kiffin said that if Rollins did not like the demotion, he should just quit. Kiffin ignored Rollins’ cry for help when he told him that he needed to take a mental-health break.
The lawsuit further alleges that after meeting with Kiffin, Rollins’ mental health problems grew much worse. He “continued to suffer anxiety, panic attacks, a loss of appetite, and a variety of other symptoms connected with his psychological problems.
After meeting with the Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Psychology, Josie Nicholson, Ph.D, CMPC, who is one of Kiffin’s superiors, suggested that he talk to Kiffin about taking a mental-health break from football.
During his follow-up meeting with Kiffin on March 21, 2023, the lawsuit alleges that “Kiffin maliciously, deliberately, intentionally, and in blatant disregard for the rights and health of Rollins, verbally assaulted him……knowing that Rollins was suffering from mental and emotional anxiety, distress and depression as evidenced by a heated exchange” between Kiffin and Rollins.
During the follow-up meeting, Rollins recorded Kiffin without his knowledge, which is legal in Mississippi, and a copy of the transcript was included in the lawsuit. ESPN has allegedly heard the audio recording but was not able to independently verify it.
The conversation is as follows:
“Ok, you have a f—ing head coach, this is a job, guess what, if I have mental issues and I’m not diminishing them, I can’t not see my f—ing boss,” Kiffin said, according to the lawsuit and the audio recording. “When you were told again and again the head coach needs to see you, wasn’t to make you practice, wasn’t to play a position you don’t f—ing want to, ok? It was to talk to you and explain to you in the real world, ok? So I don’t give a f— what your mom say, ok, or what you think in the real f—ing world, you show up to work, and then you say, ‘Hey, I have mental issues, I can’t do anything for two weeks, but if you change my position I won’t have mental issues.’
“I guarantee if we f—ing called you in and said you’re playing defense, would you have mental issues?”
“I definitely would,” Rollins said.
During the audio exchange, Rollins is heard saying, “I mean, you’re acting like my issues aren’t real.”
“I didn’t say they’re not real,” Kiffin responded. “You show up when your head — when your boss wants to meet with you. It wouldn’t have been like this. If you would’ve come here when you kept getting messages the head coach wants to talk to you, you say ‘I’m not ready to talk to him.'”
“I wasn’t,” Rollins said.
“What f—ing world do you live in?” Kiffin asked.
“I don’t see why you have to be disrespectful, honestly,” Rollins said.
“Get out of here,” Kiffin said. “Go, you’re off the team. You’re done. See ya. Go. And guess what? We can kick you off the team. So go read your f—ing rights about mental health. We can kick you off the team for not showing up. When the head coach asks to meet with you and you don’t show up for weeks, we can remove you from the team.
“It’s called being a p—y,” Kiffin said. “It’s called hiding behind s— and not showing up to work.”
Kiffin obviously did not make himself familiar with the NCAA policy on Mental Health which was introduced in 2019. However, he did brag at SEC Media Days about the school’s approach to player mental health.
“So, you know, we did a really neat thing this off-season with mental health training for our staff,” Kiffin said. “Myself, our coaching staff, everyone in our building went through a class. I know at first, you may think — people may think, oh, well, that’s a good recruiting tool that you can say, hey — which I didn’t even know at the time, we are the first staff to do this, that’s trained in mental health — and be able to say that to parents in recruiting. That was not the motive at all.”
Kiffin added: “Just over the years of going through so many mental health issues with our players and coaches, and not having tools and not having a really good system in place besides just sending them, you know, across campus, you know, to a mental health specialist. I was excited to do that and just excited for the education with that and the ability to see things and help our players. It’s really neat because they just go through so much. Players always have, but now because of the social media and every play — everywhere, everybody has seen every play, our players go through a lot. And remember, they are kids and they read all those things. When fans or media say, this play, or, oh, they lost the game, it’s really challenging when you talk to the kids about how much that wears on them, as well as all the other issues they have to deal with.”
After the meeting with Kiffin, Rollins met with Nicholson again. The suit alleges that she failed “to take corrective action concerning Kiffin’s “malicious intentional verbal assault and infliction of emotional distress on Rollins after his February 27, 2023 meeting with Rollins. Nicholson also took no action against Kiffin for the way he allegedly abused a student-athlete suffering from mental health issues.
Further, despite knowing that the situation could have been volatile for Rollins, she intentionally sent him back to Kiffin and put him in harm’s way once again.
Rollins said that he was kicked off the team by Kiffin, which Kiffin denies, and still remains on the roster today, despite not practicing and not dressing for games. He still receives the benefits of being a scholarship athlete.
It has been alleged that Kiffin went through the same problem with an unnamed white player who was allowed to rejoin the team after being removed from the team. Rollins, an African-American, was never invited back by Kiffin.
It appears as though Rollins is on the roster for optics only and is not considered a member of the team.
The lawsuit continues to describe how white female athletes, participants in volleyball and softball, were allowed to take mental-health breaks to deal with certain issues for a period of 14 days and were not kicked off the team.
