Former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris
Kluwe on Friday said he would file a lawsuit alleging discrimination
against his former employer.
The announcement came after the Vikings
said they will suspend special teams coordinator Mike Priefer without
pay for 3 games and donate $100,000 to LGBT rights groups.
In January, Kluwe alleged that he was
fired from the team by Priefer, then-head coach Leslie Frazier and
general manager Rick Spielman.
Kluwe claimed that Priefer made several
anti-gay comments in the course of objecting to his advocacy on the
issue of marriage equality and quoted Priefer as saying during a team
meeting, “We should round up all the gays, send them to an island,
and then nuke it until it glows.”
Priefer “vehemently” denied the
charges and the Vikings hired outside counsel to investigate the
claims.
On Friday, the Vikings released a
summary of the investigation.
Priefer apologized in a statement from
the team: “I regret what has occurred and what I said. I am
extremely sorry, but I will learn from this situation and will work
on educating others to create more tolerance and respect.”
Clayton Halunen, Kluwe's attorney, said
the complaint will be filed as early as Monday.
“Here we have this company, this
Minnesota company who's getting 400 million out of taxpayers' funds
to build the stadium, and yet they are violating state law by
engaging in discriminatory conduct, and that is unacceptable,”
Halunen is quoted as saying by the
AP.
The lawsuit also alleges defamation and
wrongful interference of a contract.