{"id":439458,"date":"2021-04-21T17:20:51","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T21:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=439458"},"modified":"2021-04-21T17:20:54","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T21:20:54","slug":"former-college-soccer-player-says-in-lawsuit-she-was-forced-off-team-for-not-taking-a-knee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/former-college-soccer-player-says-in-lawsuit-she-was-forced-off-team-for-not-taking-a-knee\/","title":{"rendered":"Former College Soccer Player Says In Lawsuit She Was Forced Off Team For Not Taking A Knee"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fformer-college-soccer-player-says-in-lawsuit-she-was-forced-off-team-for-not-taking-a-knee%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=439458&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-3163.jpeg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Kiersten Hening, a former Virginia Tech University soccer player, has filed suit against her ex-coach for allegedly benching her because she wouldn\u2019t take a knee during a pre-game reading of an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) unity pledge.<\/p>\n<p>Hening filed the federal lawsuit against Charles \u201cChugger\u201d Adair on March 3, claiming that \u201cbecause she refused to kneel, he benched her, subjected her to repeated verbal abuse, and forced her off the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit claims Adair\u2019s actions violated Hening\u2019s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.\u00a0Hening, a junior at Virginia Tech, was a starter on defense during her freshman and sophomore years before leaving the team.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit says Adair supported proposals by the university to have its athletes wear Black Lives Matter masks, wristbands, and armbands, but Henning dissented.\u00a0\u201cWhile Hening supports social justice and believes that black lives matter, she does not support the BLM organization. She disagrees with its tactics and core tenets of its mission statement, including defunding the police and eliminating the nuclear family,\u201d the lawsuit alleges, WSLS News 10 of Roanoke, Virginia, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsls.com\/news\/local\/2021\/04\/19\/former-virginia-tech-soccer-player-sues-coach-saying-he-forced-her-off-team-for-not-kneeling-before-a-game\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Before the team\u2019s first game of the season on Sept. 12, 2020, the team\u2019s starters took a knee while a unity statement issued by the ACC was read. But Hening remained standing. The pledge says: \u201cWe, the ACC, are committed to seeing each other as equals, supporting each other, and treating each other with respect and dignity at all times, recognizing that our differences don\u2019t divide us, but they make us stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAccording to the lawsuit, Adair was strongly supportive of the ACC\u2019s equality pledge and even suggested having players wear the names of victims of alleged police misconduct on their jerseys, and that his direct supervisor, senior associate athletic director Reyna Gilbert-Lowery, \u2018is a vocal supporter of [Black Lives Matter].\u2019\u201d The Richmond-Times Dispatch\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/richmond.com\/sports\/college\/former-virginia-tech-soccer-player-sues-coach-claiming-she-was-forced-off-team-for-refusing\/article_50b30056-bdb4-5418-9e27-abd18a761dc3.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Hening\u2019s lawsuit says during halftime of the game, Adair \u201csingled her out and verbally attacked her, pointed a finger directly in her face.\u201d\u00a0The lawsuit also says another Hokie who did not kneel \u201cwas not yelled at because that player was on scholarship and her parents had called and told Adair to not retaliate against their daughter for opposing Black Lives Matter,\u201d WSLS reported.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe following game, Hening was removed from the starting lineup and played a position she had previously never played before in college. Then, during a film session after the game, Adair again yelled at Hening, according to the lawsuit,\u201d said the station.\u00a0Hening did not start the next game either and only played 5 minutes of the 90-minute game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCoach Adair\u2019s campaign of abuse and retaliation made conditions for Hening so intolerable that she felt compelled to resign. Hening did not want to leave; but, given no real choice, she resigned on September 20,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<p>According to WSLS, Hening is seeking:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"Box-sc-12ejyki-0 izfRRR font_openSans articleList\" readability=\"27\">\n<li class=\"Box-sc-12ejyki-0 ewQCSW\" readability=\"-1\">\n<p><span class=\"Text__BaseText-mmkwcw-0 boakWX\">A judgment that Adair violated both her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"Box-sc-12ejyki-0 ewQCSW\" readability=\"0\">\n<p><span class=\"Text__BaseText-mmkwcw-0 boakWX\">The ability to rejoin the team without any adverse action against her for exercising her First Amendment rights<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"Box-sc-12ejyki-0 ewQCSW\" readability=\"-1\">\n<p><span class=\"Text__BaseText-mmkwcw-0 boakWX\">An order for Adair to undergo First Amendment training<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"Box-sc-12ejyki-0 ewQCSW\" readability=\"0\">\n<p><span class=\"Text__BaseText-mmkwcw-0 boakWX\">Compensatory, punitive and nominal damages<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\">member<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kiersten Hening, a former Virginia Tech University soccer player, has filed suit against her ex-coach for allegedly benching her because she wouldn\u2019t take a knee during a pre-game reading of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2276420,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-3163.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Former College Soccer Player Says In Lawsuit She Was Forced Off Team For Not Taking A Knee","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-439458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-3163.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Former College Soccer Player Says In Lawsuit She Was Forced Off Team For Not Taking A Knee","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2276420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}