Former soccer player gets $100K for getting benched. Wouldn't kneel for "social justice"

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A former Virginia Tech soccer player whose coach benched her for refusing to kneel during a pregame social-justice demonstration just scored $100,000 under a terms of a settlement with said coach.

Kiersten Hening filed a lawsuit in 2021 against head coach Charles "Chugger" Adair on First Amendment grounds, claiming that she was benched after Adair became frustrated by her political views, which often differed from those of her teammates, the Roanoke Times reports.

The 'social-justice demonstration' was primarily a ritual in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis Police (and with an elephant-sized dose of fentanyl in his system).

After Henning refused to kneel during the reading of a "unity statement" prior to a Sept. 12, 2020 game against the University of Virginia, Adair "verbally attacked" her during halftime - berating and eventually benching her. Two games later, she quit the team, saying that she was forced out due to her coach's "campaign of abuse and retaliation."

Henning claimed in her lawsuit that while she "supports social justice and believes that black lives matter," she "does not support BLM the organization," citing its "tactics and core tenets of its mission statement, including defunding the police," the NY Post reports.

The settlement comes after a Dec. 2 decision by Judge Thomas Cullen, who denied a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and agreeing that Henning's time on the field decreased following the incident.

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