{"id":861,"date":"2023-01-31T16:45:34","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T16:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/?p=861"},"modified":"2023-01-31T16:45:36","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T16:45:36","slug":"she-was-punished-for-refusing-to-kneel-won-100k-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/2023\/01\/31\/she-was-punished-for-refusing-to-kneel-won-100k-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"She Was Punished for Refusing to Kneel, Won $100K in Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By John Friend<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A former standout Virginia Tech women\u2019s soccer player who alleged the team\u2019s head coach persecuted and targeted her for refusing to kneel in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM) in the fall 2020 season will receive a $100,000 settlement as part of an agreement to dismiss the federal lawsuit she filed against the coach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kiersten Hening filed a federal lawsuit against Virginia Tech head women\u2019s soccer coach Charles \u201cChugger\u201d Adair, claiming he removed her as a starter on the team and reduced her playing time in an attempt to force her to quit the team due to her criticisms of the BLM movement. Hening was a junior during the 2020 season and had been one of the team\u2019s top defenders her previous two seasons as a freshman and sophomore where she started the vast majority of games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The suit argued that Hening was a \u201ctalented defender\u201d who had the most minutes played on the entire team as the 2020 season started. She was even selected to represent the team to media outlets before the season began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sept. 1, 2020, shortly before the start of the season and in the immediate aftermath of the BLM uprising that began with the death of George Floyd earlier that year, an advisory committee of student athlete representatives discussed ways of supporting the BLM movement, including by wearing BLM-themed face masks, wrist and armbands, and warmup attire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the lawsuit, Hening alleges that most of the women\u2019s soccer team players supported the initiative, including head coach Adair. Adair also suggested replacing \u201cHokies,\u201d the name of Virginia Tech athletic teams, emblazoned on the back of the soccer team\u2019s uniforms with the names of alleged victims of police misconduct and wanted players to kneel before games in a display of solidarity with the BLM movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hening did not support these initiatives, expressing her reservations with other players on the team through text messages, which ultimately came to the attention of Adair. On Sept. 3, two days after the advisory committee\u2019s recommendations, Hening\u2019s teammates insisted coach Adair address \u201cthe fact that some of his players were \u2018racist\u2019 and did not support BLM,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hening refused to kneel with the rest of the team\u2019s starters during the opening match of the season on Sept. 12, 2020, resulting in her being the subject of a tirade launched against her by Adair. That began a \u201ccampaign of abuse\u201d by the head coach, coupled with reduced playing time, that ultimately resulted in Hening\u2019s decision to leave the program on Sept. 20, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hening insisted in the lawsuit that she supports social justice, but \u201cdoes not support BLM the organization,\u201d disagreeing with the \u201ctactics and core tenets of its mission statement, including defunding the police.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By John Friend A former standout Virginia Tech women\u2019s soccer player who alleged the team\u2019s head coach persecuted and targeted her for refusing to kneel in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM) in the fall 2020 season will receive a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":862,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions\/862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}