Both Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss were served a lawsuit Thursday after junior defensive lineman DeSanto Rollins said he was kicked off the team for missing meetings and practices during a “mental health crisis”, ESPN’s Heather Dinich reported Thursday night.

Rollins is suing Kiffin and the institution for for failure to provide equal protection, racial and sexual discrimination, and multiple other allegations, the lawsuit says.

A reserve defensive lineman whose college career has been riddled with injuries, Rollins is seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and $30 million in punitive damages as the lawsuit alleges Kiffin took adverse action against Rollins “on account of race for requesting and taking a mental health break, but not taking adverse action against white student-athletes” who request a break for the same reason.

Rollins’ lawsuit also alleges sexual discrimination against Ole Miss on the basis that is has not taken “adverse action against female student-athletes for requesting and taking a mental health break.”

An Ole Miss spokesman told ESPN that the university had yet to receive the lawsuit as of Thursday night.

“DeSanto was never removed from the football team and remains on scholarship,” Ole Miss said in its statement. “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.”

Meanwhile, Kiffin deferred to the school’s statement when asked for comment.

Rollins’ lawsuit claims that Ole Miss “did not have written institutional procedures for routine mental health referrals” at the time of the incident. The lawsuit also claims Kiffin, the Ole Miss football coaching staff and the program’s athletic trainers weren’t provided with “role-appropriate training about the signs and symptoms of mental health disorders and the behaviors of student-athletes to monitor that may reflect psychological concerns.”

As Rollins dealt with numerous injuries throughout his career — including a concussion in the spring of 2022 and an injury to his Achilles tendon that July — he “suffered severe depression, anxiety, frustration, embarrassment, humiliation, a loss of sleep and loss of appetite” from the injury to his Achilles.

The lawsuit goes on to state that no one within the Ole Miss football program provided him resources about mental health or a mental health referral following his injury.

After being cleared to play in August, Rollins aggravated an existing injury to his LCL, which once again sidelined him and saw him experience another bout of “severe depression”, the lawsuit says.

In late November in a meeting with defensive line coach Randall Joyner, Rollins was encouraged to transfer out of Ole Miss but declined. Two months later, Rollins’ grandmother died and he “continued to suffer severe depression”.

In February of 2023, Kiffin told Rollins he was being moved to the offensive line since he declined to transfer out of the program. When asked if this was a “choice or command”, Kiffin told Rollins “if he didn’t like it then he should quit.”

During that meeting, Rollins told Kiffin he was going to take “a mental break”.

Rollins’ mother, Connie Hollins, said she called the team’s athletic trainer and told him her son was experiencing a “mental health crisis” and ask that he be referred to counselor.

The team’s athletic trainer scheduled Rollins a meeting with the school’s assistant athletic director for sports psychology, Josie Nicholson, who encouraged Rollins to step away from football and that the two would reconvene in early March.

Kiffin and the Ole Miss football staff made multiple attempts to meet with Rollins during his time away from the program, but Rollins declined until March 21, when he finally met with Kiffin. Rollins’ meeting with Kiffin on March 21 was legally recorded without Kiffin’s knowledge and a copy of the transcript was provided to ESPN, which “has heard the audio recording but was not able to independently verify it,” Dinich wrote.

During the exchange, Kiffin insinuates Rollins wouldn’t be experiencing mental health issues if he wasn’t being asked to play a position he didn’t want to.

“I guarantee if we f—ing called you in and said you’re playing defense, would you have mental issues?,” Kiffin asked.

“I definitely would,” Rollins replied.

Kiffin and Rollins continued their exchange before the Ole Miss head coach told the player he was no longer a part of the program.

“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.”

As a result of the “actions and inactions” of Kiffin and the school, the lawsuit claims Rollins “has suffered physical pain and emotional distress and anguish.”

The lawsuit also cites the Americans with Disabilities Act in saying Rollins was kicked off the team because of his disability, which the lawsuit calls a “mental impairment”.

Rollins and his attorney filed a tort claims demand letter on May 3, but have yet to receive a response from the defendants, the lawsuit says.

Rollins, who is expected to graduate in December with a degree in business, declined to comment on the matter but told ESPN, “I love Ole Miss, but they do not love me.”

During SEC Media Days in Nashville this past July, Kiffin said Ole Miss had implemented mental health training for its coaching staff and players this past offseason.

“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 across campus to a mental health specialist,” Kiffin said. “So I was excited to do that and excited for the education with that and the ability to see things and help our players is really neat.”