A former Eureka High School football player and his mother have filed a lawsuit against the Rockwood School District, claiming the boy endured sexual harassment and hazing at the school for nearly two years and not enough was done to stop it.
The lawsuit, filed Jan. 9 in St. Louis County Circuit Court, says the student was assaulted, harassed and discriminated against beginning when he was a freshman football player in 2021. The suit claims the student had to quit the football team in summer 2023, and his mother lost her job because she was forced to take so much time off work to deal with the situation.
The boy is identified as “John Doe” in court documents.
In the lawsuit, the boy and his mother are seeking “actual damages, including emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, and other nonpecuniary losses, and attorney’s fees and costs.”
They will seek punitive damages at the appropriate time, according to the lawsuit.
Mary LaPak, Rockwood’s chief communications officer, said in an email that the district is not at liberty to discuss ongoing legal matters.
In March 2022, before suing the school district, the student’s mother filed a complaint on her son’s behalf with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, alleging harassment, discrimination based on sex and retaliation. In November 2023, MCHR issued a Right to Sue letter, according to the lawsuit.
The suit claims the harassment started on Sept. 30, 2021, when two older classmen allegedly assaulted the boy in the locker room. A sophomore allegedly grabbed the boy from behind and another student yelled out a proposition for sex as a junior exposed his genitals and acted like he was going to make the pinned student perform a sexual act.
Teammates laughed about the locker room incident at practice that day, the lawsuit said.
The junior allegedly approached the alleged victim from behind during practice on Oct. 1, 2021, pressed up against the boy’s back and asked about a sexual act. The alleged victim said he turned around, and the junior was pulling up his pants, according to the lawsuit.
The alleged victim or his mother reported the two incidents that evening to Eureka High Principal Corey Sink and head football coach Jake Sumner and on Oct. 6, 2021, the boy’s mother filed a Title IX complaint, the lawsuit said.
according to the lawsuit.
According to the suit, the school put a safety plan in place for the boy on Oct. 7, 2021. Sink and a counselor were designated to be the student’s primary contacts if he experienced harassment during school hours, and a coach was assigned to be his contact to report harassment during football activities,
The lawsuit also said the safety plan called for the junior to have no contact with the younger boy, and a member of the coaching staff was to monitor the football locker room when student-athletes were in it. The counselor also was to check in with the boy to make sure he was not being harassed.
The football players reportedly learned the boy had reported the assault and battery and continued to haze, tease, harass and threaten him. The school and district allegedly failed to monitor or discipline students for the continued harassment, and the junior continued to have contact with the boy, including in an unmonitored locker room, according to the lawsuit.
The school revised the safety plan in June 2022 and December 2022, changing how the boy reported the harassment so it would be more confidential; changing the supervision requirements for the junior and alleged victim; and setting up weekly meetings between the boy and counselor to make sure he was not being harassed or threatened, the lawsuit said.
The boy and his mother claim the harassment continued, and in summer 2023, he quit playing football. The lawsuit said Rockwood’s actions affected the boy’s “ability to relate to his peers and prevented Plaintiff Doe from enjoying the social and educational benefits of being in a school setting with peers.”