Judge again finds Mead School District liable in hazing lawsuit

May 19-Mead School District Superintendent Travis Hanson deleted references to "race and racial targeting" from the district's investigation into football player hazing and later "stood before the school community" and said "nothing learned during the investigation suggested racial targeting or motivations," according to court documents filed May 11 by an attorney representing one of the football players who was hazed.

"That statement was demonstrably false, and Superintendent (Hanson) knew it," according to the attorney's proposed order granting his motion for partial summary judgment.

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Annette Plese did not sign the order, but she did rule May 13 the school district is liable for racial discrimination as the civil case heads to trial next month.

Todd Zeidler, Mead School District spokesman, wrote in an email that Plese's order "does not contain any of the inaccurate allegations" noted in the order proposed by Marcus Sweetser, an attorney at Sweetser Law Office in Spokane who is representing the former Mead student-athlete mentioned in Plese's ruling.

"Those allegations are defamatory and damaging," Zeidler said. "This matter is in active litigation, and the District looks forward to presenting the full factual record as this matter proceeds."

When asked to clarify what parts of Sweetser's court filing was inaccurate, Zeidler wrote the matter "will play out in court in a matter of weeks."

"The District must be careful not to litigate this matter in the media," Zeidler wrote.

The lawsuits against the school district allege Mead High School football players pinned down their teammates at summer football camps and assaulted them with a massage gun while other players recorded on their cellphones. The incidents happened at camps in 2022 and 2023 at Eastern Washington University.

The cellphone videos of the incidents circulated in the Mead community and beyond.

Three lawsuits have been filed in the last two years against the district alleging coaches and district officials failed to protect players and report the assaults, harassment and racial discrimination they believe was leveled against the student-athletes. Four of the five athletes who filed suits are Black.

Some of the Black players endured intimidation and routine racial slurs in the months following the incidents, the lawsuits say.

One of the students and his parents filed a lawsuit in March in federal court seeking $50 million in damages in a case that also names Eastern Washington University, where the hazing occurred.

In March 2024, Josh Westermann, Mead's Title IX and harassment, intimidation and bullying compliance officer, documented in his investigative report a "concerning and persistent pattern of racist comments and discriminatory harassment" in Mead High School's athletic programs, Sweetser wrote in the proposed order.

"The District's Superintendent, Travis Hanson, deliberately deleted all references to race and racial targeting from Westermann's final report without Westermann's knowledge, authorization, or consent," Sweetser wrote. "The Mead School District then distributed the altered version of Westermann's report to the news media, the school board, parents, and the community."

In a March 2024 letter to Mead School District families, Hanson and the Mead School Board wrote that the football camp hazing was "symptomatic of deeper issues."

"Yes, we must address hazing, intimidation, and targeted physical harassment, but the investigation also uncovered issues of racial harassment and tension that we cannot and will not ignore," the letter said.

Sweetser wrote that Hanson told the public the investigation did not find race as a factor in the hazing, which Sweetser wrote was false because the district received reports from Black student-athletes that they were being targeted and subjected to racial slurs and harassment at school.

The district was required by law to take action against the alleged harassment, but did not.

The "suppression of racial discrimination complaints" violated state and district policies, which mandated the district to proceed under discrimination complaint procedures when an investigation reveals civil rights implications, Sweetser wrote. Hanson "abandoned" the discriminatory Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying procedures and proceeded exclusively under a narrower Title IX framework.

The district argued and Hanson testified that he removed findings of racial targeting from the report on the advice of the district's attorneys, according to Sweetser. The attorneys instructed Hanson at his deposition not to answer questions about why he removed the racial findings from the report, asserting attorney-client privilege.

Reached in separate phone calls on Monday, board Vice President Alan Nolan and member Michael Cannon each declined to discuss Hanson's alleged actions in altering the report.

Asked if they would consider any sort of discipline or evaluation of the superintendent, who is the board's sole employee, neither offered any insight.

"We evaluate the entire performance, so I'm not going to make any comment on that," Nolan said.

"I can't comment on that right now, pending the upcoming trial," Cannon said.

Sweetser also is representing a white player who tried to protect Black players from the massage gun assaults and was assaulted himself as a result, according to that lawsuit against Mead School District. Plese found in March the district liable in that case, which is also heading to trial next month.

Two of the four Black students settled their cases with the school district.

Misdemeanor fourth-degree assault charges were submitted to the Spokane County Prosecutor's Office for five students involved in the 2023 assaults, but prosecutors did not charge them with assault.

Instead, per state law, they were referred to a diversion program because they had no criminal history and the charge was a gross misdemeanor. A diversion agreement is outside the criminal justice system and may require the defendants to perform community service, counseling and other similar options.

Reporter Elena Perry contributed to this report.

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