Janelle Atkinson-Wignall, the former coach of the Stony Brook University women’s swim team, has filed a gender and race discrimination lawsuit against the university.
At issue, according to Atkinson, are her coaching methods. Her team members complained that she inflicted emotional abuse upon them. This led to an internal investigation and ultimately a decision in January 2018 not to renew her contract, according to the complaint.
The offending behavior allegedly involved cursing and degrading athletes, threatening to take scholarships away, forcing them to practice when ill, and ignoring their injuries.
Atkinson argued that Stony Brook held her to a “higher standard” than white male coaches, claiming they employed the same coaching tactics.
Atkinson, a black woman of Jamaican descent, told the media: “I didn’t do any of the things that were claimed about me. Would this have happened if I was male? Would it have happened if I was white?”
One of her swimmers challenged the first sentence in her statement.
“What started out as a dream quickly turned into a nightmare as Coach Janelle broke our trust and our spirits,” swimmer Tess Stepakoff told Stony Brook’s student newspaper, The Statesman. “We were told that we were weak, that we were not strong enough, and we were not trying. We were cursed at and screamed at during every practice for months. As our physical and mental health declined, we were told to get over it. If we had to miss practice for injuries or illnesses, our spots on the team were threatened. Some of us who were strong enough to stay fought for change. Some chose to leave, and some were bullied into quitting.”
Atkinson is being represented by Thomas Newkirk, an Iowa-based attorney who focuses on cases dealing with implicit bias. He also represented former Rutgers University swim coach Petra Martin, who resigned in 2017 amid similar allegations of emotional abuse. Martin sued the school and reached a $725,000 settlement, according to media reports.
