{"id":2628,"date":"2026-03-05T22:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T22:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/2026\/03\/ex-harvard-westlake-water-polo-player-sues-over-abuse\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T22:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T22:02:08","slug":"ex-harvard-westlake-water-polo-player-sues-over-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/2026\/03\/ex-harvard-westlake-water-polo-player-sues-over-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Foul Play: Ex-Harvard-Westlake Water Polo Player Claims He Was Sexually And Racially Abused At School"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Source: Anadolu \/ Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A high school athlete has leveled accusations of sexual abuse and racial abuse against his former school, the principal, his team and one of his former teammates.<\/p>\n

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According to ABC7<\/a>, an 18-year-old former Harvard-Westlake school water polo player named Aidan Romain has filed a lawsuit allegeding that he was completely dehumanized by a teammate named Lucca Van Der Woude.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe racial abuse and sexual abuse was a daily basis thing,\u201d he added. \u201cIt happened in nearly every training; it would happen many times daily, sometimes outside of the pool. So, it was certainly a difficult experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He continued:<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe abuse was not spontaneous. It was part of a years-long culture in which violence and humiliation were normalized and facilitated through the school\u2019s coaching staff and administration.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Romain says that he was regularly addressed as the n-word and was also physically assaulted as if he was a \u201cslave\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe complaint walks through a myriad of allegations of racial abuse ranging from Aidan being called the N-word to being literally whipped with exercise bands in the weight room supposedly re-enacting slavery,\u201d said attorney Daniel Watkins, who represents Romain in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Romain also says that Van Der Woude would sexually assault him while they were underwater together. For their part, the school released a public statement dodging any remote sense of accountability. <\/p>\n

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\u201cHarvard-Westlake will not offer specific comment other than to say that it unequivocally disputes many of these allegations that mischaracterize facts and the school\u2019s actions,\u201d read the statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe school treated reports of inappropriate behavior in its water polo program with urgency and seriousness, promptly initiating an investigation and complying with its mandatory reporting obligations.\u201c<\/p>\n

Harvard-Westlake says they complied fully with law enforcement\u2019s questions and won\u2019t be speaking on the matter any further. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

They better hope there aren\u2019t receipts because a settling a lawsuit like this could get very, very expensive. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

The post Foul Play: Ex-Harvard-Westlake Water Polo Player Claims He Was Sexually And Racially Abused At School<\/a> appeared first on Bossip<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: Anadolu \/ Getty A high school athlete has leveled accusations of sexual abuse and racial abuse against his former…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14044,"featured_media":2933,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[10,9],"class_list":["post-2628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-rss","tag-culture","tag-hip-hop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}