Kiersten Hening: Ex-soccer player who was benched for refusing to kneel allowed to sue school's coach
BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA: A federal judge has decided that a former Virginia Tech women's soccer player can legally sue the team's coach for benching her after she declined to kneel in a social justice protest. Judge Thomas Cullen for the Western District of Virginia found on December 2 that Kiersten Hening's First Amendment rights may have been infringed by Coach Charles "Chugger" Adair for declining to participate in the demonstration at the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The judge said that Hening's action, which claims that Adair punished her for holding certain political views, will thus be allowed to proceed to trial. In a federal lawsuit filed last month, Hening said that Adair did not agree with her political views and she ended up paying a huge price for that — apart from being kicked off the team, she was also subjected to repeated verbal abuse, she says.
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During the pregame reading of a "unity statement" on September 12, 2020, Hening said that many of her teammates kneeled before their game against Virginia, but she remained standing. She says that she was "verbally attacked" by Adair at half-time. Adair allegedly pointed a finger "directly in her face" and said that she was "b***hing and moaning". Additionally, Adair allegedly said Hening was being selfish and individualistic for "doing her own thing." "All starters, including Hening, were standing on the field at the time,' the lawsuit says. "While other starters knelt during the unity statement to mirror [former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's 2016 protests] and express support for [the Black Lives Matter movement], Hening remained standing," as cited by Daily Mail.
She alleges Adair reacted angrily at halftime, focusing on her rather than the other players who stayed standing since she was not a scholarship athlete. "At the next opportunity — halftime of the Virginia game — Coach Adair berated Hening for her stance,' the lawsuit added. It continued, "Coach Adair's tirade was so extreme, so personally directed at Hening, and so disconnected from the game itself, that her teammates approached her afterward to comfort her and express their shock." In the lawsuit, Hening clarified that she "supports social justice and believes that black lives matter" but she said that she "does not support BLM the organization." In addition to that, she added that she disagrees with Black Lives Matter's "tactics and core tenets of its mission statement, including defunding the police."
This anti-movement sentiment had previously emerged in a series of private social media interactions with teammates. "Someone took a screenshot of some of these private messages between girls on the team and shared them with the coaching staff," the lawsuit says. "Some of Hening's teammates also saw the messages and became outraged." The team's players allegedly demanded that Adair address Hening's social media statements in September 2020. After the Virginia game, Hening was demoted to the bench, prompting her to leave the team entirely. The lawsuit reads, "Coach Adair's campaign of abuse and retaliation made conditions for Hening so intolerable that she felt compelled to resign. Hening did not want to leave." It added, "As a result of her coach's actions, Hening can no longer play the game she loves, despite having two more years of NCAA eligibility. This Court should vindicate Hening's constitutional rights and award her legal and equitable relief," as per Daily Mail.
Hening is asking the court to order Adair to "undergo First Amendment training" in addition to unspecified monetary support for compensatory, punitive, and nominal damages as well as attorney expenses.