HOLYOKE — After a Holyoke High School student wrote an article in 2021 about discrimination she faced as the only girl on the football team, the school allegedly forced the student paper to remove the article. That’s what the former student claims in a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.
The suit, which identifies the former student only as Jane Doe, names the city of Holyoke and Anthony Soto, state-appointed receiver of the city’s schools, as defendants. Neither Soto nor Mayor Joshua Garcia could be immediately reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.
The civil rights lawsuit includes claims of gender-based discrimination and violations of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, an act that forbids sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs. The complaint accuses the district of “deliberately ignoring, and refusing to investigate, allegations of sex-based discrimination and harassment.”
