Anti-kneeling athlete Kiersten Hening got the green light from a judge, allowing her lawsuit to proceed. The former women’s soccer player for Virginia Tech can drag her former coach in front of jury, “after she was allegedly benched and pressured to leave the team for declining to kneel during a pregame social justice demonstration.”
Lawsuit allowed to proceed
As soon as any defense lawyer gets a copy of the lawsuit, the first thing they do is a whole round of motions to “dismiss” the case, for every reason they can possibly come up with.
That way, they might not have to even mention the actual issues. Kiersten Hening did not have her case “dismissed.” Now, the legal fun begins.
As alleged in her lawsuit, Ms. Hening was a “midfielder/defender for the Hokies from 2018 to 2020.” That changed suddenly when the coach benched her. Simply because she wouldn’t take a knee in wokeness, along with the rest of her team.
In 2020, a soccer player at Virginia Tech refused to kneel when her coach demanded she comply
She sued, and recently got a major win in her First Amendment fighthttps://t.co/XQdyMrfRXE
— OutKick (@Outkick) December 12, 2022
Coach Charles ‘Chugger’ Aidair apparently violated her First Amendment rights, out on the field where everyone could see it. Federal Judge Thomas Cullen gave defense lawyers the bad news on December 2.
Ms. Hening alleges that “Adair was not a fan of her political views and that she often differed from her teammates on social justice issues during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.”
She had to file a lawsuit simply because she doesn’t fawn all over Megan Rapinoe. While Hening “supports social justice and believes that black lives matter,” she “does not support BLM the organization,” citing its “tactics and core tenets of its mission statement, including defunding the police.”
A unity statement
Hening simply “declined” to kneel “during a reading of a ‘unity statement‘ before a game against UVA on September 12, 2020.” Immediately, “Adair ‘verbally attacked her‘ at halftime, claiming she was ‘b–tching and moaning‘ while jabbing a finger in her face.”
That’s called free speech, sunshine, read a copy of the Constitution sometime. “The coach continued to berate Hening until he benched her and ultimately made things so intolerable that she felt compelled to quit the team.” Then, she filed a lawsuit. The judge doesn’t think it’s “frivolous,” either.
“Hening, who had been a major on-field contributor for two years prior to the 2020 season, also asserts that Adair removed her from the starting lineup for the next two games and drastically reduced her playing time in those games because she had engaged in this protected First Amendment activity.”
Before they filed their lawsuit, her lawyers made sure they could back that up with facts and figures.
“As a freshman, Hening averaged 76 minutes of playing time; as a sophomore, nearly 88,” Judge Cullen confirmed in his ruling. Then came her big anti-kneeling demonstration. She had to be punished for that. “As a result, Hening resigned from the team after the third game of the season.” The next step in the lawsuit is trial but it will probably settle before a jury gets to hear a word.
“Ultimately, Adair may convince a jury that this coaching decision was based solely on Hening’s poor play during the UVA game, but the court, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Hening, cannot reach that conclusion as a matter of law.” That’s a suggestion, the judge didn’t spell out. “While the U.S. Supreme Court and the Fourth Circuit may not have addressed the novel factual circumstances presented here—i.e., a college coach allegedly retaliating against a player for refusing to kneel with her coaches and teammates in support of perceived unity and social justice—the core constitutional principle is both clearly established and fundamental to a free society, and especially to an institution of higher education,” Cullen concluded. In other words, “she’s right.“
