‘Traumatized, Humiliated and Betrayed’: Black Football Players Were Held Down And Sexually Assaulted By White Teammates with a Massage Gun, Which Spokane High School Dismissed as ‘Horseplay,’ Lawsuit Claims

White football players at a high school in Spokane, Washington targeted their Black teammates for racial harassment and sexual assaults that were tantamount to gang rape, and school officials who knew about it did nothing to rein in their behavior for several months, a new lawsuit contends. Four Black former Mead High School football players and their parents are suing the Mead 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 a two-year period, according to the complaint filed last week in Spokane County Superior Court. 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...