Mon Jan 9, 2023 – 4:08 pm EST
(LifeSiteNews) — A former college soccer player who was apparently benched for her conservative political views will receive at least a $100,000 settlement, The Roanoke Times reported.
Kiersten Hening was a three-year starting midfielder-defender for the Virginia Tech Hokies from 2018 until 2020 until coach Charles “Chuck” Adair drastically limited her playing time after she refused to kneel for a pro-Black Lives Matter pre-game ceremony.
In her original lawsuit, filed in March 2021, Hening — who was joined in her defiance by two other teammates at the time — says she was “verbally attacked” at halftime by Adair. She eventually quit the team over mounting pressure two games later.
“Hening’s well-known conservative leanings and lack of support for BLM … support an inference that Adair had a retaliatory motive when he criticized, and later benched, Hening,” Trump-appointed Judge Thomas Cullen wrote in his decision against Adair’s request to dismiss the case last month.
According to court documents, several liberal players complained to a sympathetic Adair about teammates who refused to embrace BLM. Adair addressed the team about the matter and encouraged them to find consensus on the issue.
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