A former Hokies soccer player is suing the Virginia Tech women’s soccer head coach for allegedly forcing her off the team after she refused to kneel with teammates prior to a game last autumn. Kiersten Hening, a former starting defender and midfielder for the Hokies, has filed a federal lawsuit against Virginia Tech head women’s soccer coach Charles “Chugger” Adair, a former professional soccer player who has been the head coach at Virginia Tech since 2011.
The lawsuit, which was filed on March 3, alleges that Adair “benched her, subjected her to repeated verbal abuse, and forced her off the team,” according to WSLS-TV. The suit claims that Adair’s actions violated Hening’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The lawsuit alleges that Hening’s refusal to kneel is protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Hening, a junior at Virginia Tech, is labeled as a “talented defender” who started nearly all of the Hokies’ games in her freshman and sophomore seasons, according to the suit. As a freshman, Hening appeared in all 22 games and started in 19 of them. As a sophomore, she appeared in all 19 matches, was a starter in the last 18 contests, and had the second-most minutes played among field players, according to the Hokies women’s soccer website.
Hening, a former star soccer player at James River High School, claims Coach Adair launched into a “campaign of abuse and retaliation” after she refused to kneel before the team’s season-opening game on Sept. 12, 2020, against the Virginia Cavaliers.
While her teammates knelt during the pregame reading of the Atlantic Coast Conference’s unity pledge — a show of support for the social justice movement and Black Lives Matter — Hening and one other unidentified player remained standing,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
“Coach Adair berated Hening for her stance” during halftime of the game, the lawsuit states. “He singled her out and verbally attacked her, pointing a finger directly in her face. He denounced Hening for ‘bitching and moaning,’ for being selfish and individualistic, and for ‘doing her own thing.'”