Lawyers for Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss file motion to dismiss Rebels player's $40 million lawsuit

Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has filed a motion to dismiss a $40 million lawsuit filed against him by junior defensive tackle DeSanto Rollins, according to a report by Front Office Sports.

Rollins’ lawsuit alleges that Kiffin “ignored” indications the 305-pound defensive tackle was suffering from depression when he requested a mental health break from the team and includes an audio recording of a contentious meeting between Rollins and Kiffin from March.

To that, Kiffin’s lawyers responded accordingly.

“Plaintiff has not alleged Kiffin treated him differently than other similarly situated individuals, much less that he did so with discriminatory intent because of Plaintiff’s race or sex,” Kiffin’s attorney’s wrote in a brief attached to the motion to dismiss.

The crux of Rollins’ argument in his lawsuit, according to reporting done by Front Office Sports (FOS), appears to be that Lane Kiffin was upset Rollins didn’t enter the transfer portal after the 2022 season and was punished as a result.

According to FOS, Rollins said he was “being moved from his defensive tackle position to the scout team on the offensive line,” prompting him to seek a mental health break.

The ordeal culminated in an eventual spring meeting with Lane Kiffin that proved contentious, the audio of which FOS obtained and has posted in its article on the situation.

Rollins’ suit claims that similarly situated individuals like a white football player, white female softball players and female volleyball players did not face similar punishment for taking mental health breaks.

But Kiffin’s lawyers say there is no merit to Rollins’ claims in the $40 million lawsuit.

For one, they say that multiple times this spring Kiffin requested a meeting with Rollins and he did not respond until several weeks later.

Kiffin’s lawyers also noted there is no obligation for a coach to speak to his players in a particular manner nor is there a duty to have written institutional procedures on how to handle “routine mental health referrals.”

Rollins is a fourth-year junior at Ole Miss, where he has appeared in three games as a reserve.