Former Harvard’s women’s hockey coach, Katey Stone, filed aও sex discrimination suit o🅰n Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, claiming that the university forced her out last year over misconduct and hazing allegations — which she claims are false — while also alleging she faced gender bias and unfair pay from the school.
Stone stepped down from the program last summer amid multiple reports and an investigation i🔥n﷽to the culture of the women’s hockey team.
She was accused of overseeing a program where hazing allegedly occurred, including the “mental-health ‘Hunger Games'” that involved players having to participate in a “Naked Skate,” .
But she’s now claiming that she was forced out, according to her l💟awsuit against Harvard.
“I will no longer stand idly by in the face of inequity and injustice and allow one of the world’s elite universities to continue to hide behind the fraudulent veil of fairness,” Stone said at a press conference on Tuesday, . “The loss of 🥀my career, my reputation, my ability to earn a living doing a job I love, is gut-wrenching. The damage ha🐼s been real and affects me every single day.”
Stone’s attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, claimed during the press conference that Harvard used the allegations to undermine🤪 and force S🍃tone out of her position.
The Boston Globe and The Athletic published extensiv▨e reports that alleged hazing and abusive behavior during Stone’s tenure.
But Tuesday’s lawsuit ༒claimed Harvard essentially pushed Stone out, which she claims is part of a “larger cu♊lture at the University wherein female coaches are undervalued, underpaid, heavily scrutinized, and held to a breathtakingly more stringent standard of behavior than their male counterparts.”
The 33-page suit detailed what the former women’s hockey coach claimed were double standards in how Harvard treated men’s teams differently for issues that were simila🤪r to one that were alleged to ha𝓀ve happened with the women’s hockey team and contributed to her split from the program.
“Where female coaches, sucꦺh as Coach Stone, are expected to be nurturing toward their female players and coach with compassion and sensitivity, male coaches are allowed to be ‘tough’ and hold their male players accountable for theﷺir actions,” the complaint stated.
Stone, who left the school as the fourth-winningest women’s hockey coach, said she also raised concerns about the pay disparity between her and her male counterpart, despite the success of women’s hockey program compared to the men.
“Katey Stone raised this with the administration and was told men have to make quicker in-game decisions,” Miltenberg said during Tuesday’s news conference, .
Stone did not take questions from r🦩eporters during the press conference, , but several former players of hers were on hand to speak in defense of their fo𝔉rmer coach.
Stone called the people who have spoken against he🐠r as a “small number” wh♎o “have not felt supported.”
The former hockey coach also named 50 Jane Doe defendants who are bein♚g sued for defamation o𝔉ver what she claimed were false statements to the Boston Globe and Harvard.
She is seeking $5 million or mor𝓰e from those 50 Jane Doe defendants.
