A Dallas woman is suing the University of Cincinnati and the school’s volleyball coach after she was kicked off the team for posting Instagram photos deemed “too sexy” by the coach, a suit filed last week in federal court says.
The suit, filed by former University of Cincinnati volleyball player Shalom Ifeanyi, accuses the coach and the school of racial and sex-based discrimination.
Via Dallas News:
The suit says 19-year-old Ifeanyi, who now lives in Dallas, was ordered to delete Instagram photos by the coach, Molly Alvey. During a meeting in June 2017, Alvey pointed to one of Ifeanyi’s Instagram photos and told her to remove it from her profile, the lawsuit says.
“When the football players see this, what do you think they see? They see your breasts. It’s seductive,” Alvey said to Ifeanyi during the meeting, according to the lawsuit.
Here are the pictures from the courtroom exhibits below:
More info from Dallas News:
The suit says Ifeanyi complied, deleting the photo and leaving the office. Text messages included as exhibits in the lawsuit show that Alvey texted Ifeanyi a few days after the meeting, telling her to delete other photos from her account.
Ifeanyi replied, telling the coach she felt she was being body-shamed and treated differently than her teammates, who had posted photos in which they were wearing swimsuits.
The suit says her teammates, specifically those of a “slighter build and lighter complexion,” didn’t receive any requests to remove their photos.
“I can’t help the way I’m built,” she wrote in the text message, according to the suit. “I am not trying to argue, I just feel like I have to be flat chested or real skinny in order to post.”
To me those pics are the least bit scandalous. I’m not sure what set off the coach, but it seems personal feeling had to play in on this dismissal. With TV and Print media these days, there’s no way those pics crossed any sort of line.
