A former University of Oklahoma volleyball player sued her coaches and the university, saying that she was labeled racist and alienated by the team because of her persinal views.
According to OU Daily, Kylee McLaughlin, a team captain and first-team All-Big 12 player for the Sooners in 2018 and 2019, has filed a lawsuit against head coach Lindsey Gray-Walton, assistant coach Kyle Walton, and the school.
She is seeking a minimum of $75,000 in damages for "financial loss, humiliation, and mental anguish and suffering," KFOR-TV noted.
McLaughlin's teammates and coaches, according to her suit, labeled her as a "racist" and "homophobe" over two incidents. First was after she described the film "13th" as "slanted left" and critical of President Donald Trump at the time. The suits says that at least one of McLaughlin's teammates thought her statements offensive during a team conversation after the screening of the documentary "13th," a Netflix video which documents the systematic imprisonment of African Americans.
She also made tweets about the "Eyes of Texas" song, a tradition that University of Texas student-athletes wanted to abolish due to its allegedly "racist" history.
Details of the complaint based on the court document
According to court filings, after the death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020, the OU volleyball team started having conversations on "white privilege" and "social justice," more than volleyball. The team was instructed to watch the 2016 documentary "13th," which focused on African American imprisonment.
According to McLaughlin's claim, made at a team meeting on June 11, 2020, the film was skewed to the left. She said it "took some shots" at former President Donald Trump and compared it with "beatings of Blacks in the 1960's." She went on to say that African Americans have a disproportionately high incidence of imprisonment.
One African American teammate subsequently said that she thought McLaughlin's remarks were discriminatory. The next day, McLaughlin was subjected to even more interrogation.
"The Eyes of Texas"
Because of the song's initial usage in minstrel shows, student-athletes campaigned against it and wanted to abandon it.
McLaughlin claims in her complaint that she did not feel the song was racist and that it would be improper for Texas to do away with it. In response to a tweet ESPN made about the student-athletes and the song, she posted a laughing clown emoji on social media. Consequently, a number of volleyball players from Texas and Oklahoma chastised her.
Gray-Walton directed McLaughlin to erase the tweet. Later, McLaughlin apologized to the coach and players of the Texas women's volleyball team.
"I can't save you when you get into the real world" the coach said to McLaughlin.
Later, volleyball coaches and officials informed McLaughlin that she didn't fit the program's culture and offered her three alternatives to remain at OU. She had the option of transferring to another school "with only two weeks left before volleyball started for fall semester," maintaining her scholarship but enrolling as a regular student at OU, or redshirting for the season - to retain her scholarship but receive "diversity training" and practice only with the coach sans the team.
The suit states that McLaughlin first chose to redshirt before attempting to transfer to UCLA, but it did not materialize. Furthermore, the complaint claims that the school's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion gave McLaughlin a "growth plan" that includes instruction on unlearning "classism," "ableism," "trans and homosexual negativities," and "sexism."
According to the lawsuit, McLaughlin was compelled to attend classes on diversity, identities, privilege, and racism in order to "condition" her to "be woke."
She soon enrolled at the University of Mississippi.
"Although (McLaughlin) supports equality, social justice, and finds racism despicable," the suit claims, "she disagreed with the WOKE culture and critical race theory advocated and practiced by two of her coaches who are the Defendants in this action."
