Harvard-Westlake School, its president and a coach are seeking a partial dismissal of claims within a lawsuit filed by a Black former student who alleges he was subjected to repeated incidents of sexual assault and racial attacks, called the “N” word and whipped with exercise bands in the weight room.
Aidan Romain’s Alhambra Superior Court lawsuit targets the Studio City school, its president, Romain’s former coach and ex-teammate Lucca Van Der Woude. The abuse was not spontaneous, according to the suit, but was instead part of a longtime culture in which violence and humiliation were made normal and enabled through the school’s coaching staff and administration.
Romain alleges that from August 2022 until February 2024, while a minor, he was sexually assaulted, harassed and humiliated primarily by three Harvard-Westlake water polo teammates — often in the presence of Harvard-Westlake agents and employees. He further alleges that Van Der Woude sexually assaulted him over and over again inside the weight room and under the pool water surface.
Romain and Van Der Woude are both now 18 years old, and neither currently attends Harvard-Westlake.
But in court papers filed April 28 with Judge Lauren A. R. Lofton, attorneys for the school, water polo coach Jack Grover and school President Richard B. Commons said Romain’s claims for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil rights violations are not supported.
Nowhere in the lawsuit does Romain contend any negligence by Commons and the only allegations concerning the president are that he was previously a headmaster at another school where sexual abuse allegedly took place between students, according to the defendants’ attorneys’ court papers.
There is not any “extreme and outrageous conduct” by Grover toward Romain that would justify the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim and the civil rights violation allegation against Grover and the school does not allege any threats, intimidation or coercion toward Romain by either, according to the defendants’ attorneys’ pleadings.
Romain does not allege that Harvard-Westlake employees heard any alleged racial abuse and although he contends that he told his coach about one alleged racist epithet, his only complaint is that he was dissatisfied with the lack of discipline of the other student, according to the defendants’ attorneys’ court papers.
Meanwhile, Van Der Woude has filed a separate motion asking that portions of Romain’s lawsuit language be stricken on grounds that those writings allege “groundless and irrelevant references to highly disparaging comments, news articles and sealed, confidential records of juvenile proceedings.”
One of the passages objected to by the Van Der Woude reads in part as follows: “The LAPD eventually arrested Lucca Van Der Woude on school grounds for his sex crimes. Harvard-Westlake subsequently banned him from the campus, prohibited him from playing water polo at Harvard-Westlake and required him to write an apology letter, which if he wrote, he never sent to plaintiff.”
Another portion the Van Der Woude lawyers want eliminated states: “Harvard-Westlake facilitated the transfer and certified that Lucca Van Der Woude faced no disciplinary action of any kind in order to allow him to play water polo at Newport Harbor in the following year. This representation was knowingly false.”
The Van Der Woude attorneys also want Romain’s request for punitive damages stricken on grounds the plaintiff states no evidence of malice, oppression or fraud by Van Der Woude.
Hearings on the motions are scheduled for June 10.