Washington HS football team alleged to have sexually harassed players in new lawsuit

Players from a Washington high school football team have been named in a lawsuit that alleges black players were racially harassed and sexually abused. The lawsuit also alleges school officials news of this and did nothing for several months.

Four black former Mead High School football players, as well as their families, are suing the school district for failing to intervene in a football program that “created and tolerated an environment of assaults, sexual assaults, racial discrimination, threats, bullying and harassment” over two years, according to the complaint filed last week in Spokane County Superior Court.

A recent article from The Atlanta Black Star detailed the lawsuit and claims. Below is an excerpt from The Atlanta Black Star article.

The lawsuit says two of the black players were sexually assaulted by white teammates at mandatory overnight football camps run by the school at Eastern Washington University over the summers of 2022 and 2023. A white player who tried to protect his teammate was also assaulted. The attacks were videotaped and widely shared on social media.

In June of 2022, a group of white football players allegedly grabbed a black teammate, “a star athlete” with a high GPA, from his room, “carried him down two flights of stairs, passed at least one football coach, stripped him down to his underwear, violently pried his legs apart, pinned him down while he struggled, and assaulted his genitals and anus with a battery-powered oscillating massage gun.”

After the assault, the boy left the dormitory and walked to his sister’s house a mile away. No coaches attempted to locate him or contact his parents, the complaint says. He returned to the camp the next morning and asked to leave the camp. Over the ensuing months, players widely shared videos of his assault, including with the sons of the school’s football coaches, mocking and humiliating him.

Traumatized, the black student transferred out of the school district. Neither the school nor the football coaches ever investigated, the lawsuit says.

A year later, at the same camp, a group of white players allegedly let it be known that they were targeting younger black players for the same treatment, a hazing ritual they dubbed “the sacrifice.” One of the black athletes who learned that he was their first target told coaching staff that the players intended to “torment and rape” him.

The lawsuit contends the coaches ignored his concerns, and did not intervene when a group of older white players pushed their way into the black boy’s barricaded dorm room, and sexually harassed him with the massage gun in the same violent manner, noting that one of the white players who held him down was 6 feet 6 and 285 pounds.

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