Montgomery County Public Schools says it will pay nearly $10 million to four former Damascus High School junior varsity football players who sued the school system, saying they were sexually assaulted during a violent hazing ritual.
The families of the players filed a lawsuit in 2020 claiming coaches, teachers and administrators of Damscus High School allowed the hazing to continue despite hearing repeated concerns from parents.
The school football team's tradition, called "brooming," involved the forcible sodomizing of younger players with a broom, according to the lawsuit.
“Damascus High School put a winning football culture ahead of everything. Discipline, locker room supervision and student safety all went out the window," Timothy Maloney, an attorney for one of the victims, said in a statement.
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Maloney said it was likely a record settlement in the state.
The lawsuit alleged the coaches and administration failed to supervise the locker room after school and before football practice, and delayed notifying the victims' parents and law enforcement.
In a statement, MCPS said it "fully understands the importance of maintaining a safe and respectful environment in all of our school spaces. It’s important to know that as a result of what occurred, MCPS has taken extensive measures to prevent such incidents from happening in the future."
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"This is protocol rooted in an increase in monitoring and oversight of all locker rooms across our school district. This has been in place since 2018 and school and athletic personnel are trained for this each year. We are committed to creating a secure environment where every student feels safe and respected," MCPS said.
The story made national headlines in 2018 when four 15-year-old boys were charged as adults for the alleged rape of fellow junior varsity football players in the Damascus team locker room.
The sexual assault of one of the victims happened in the football locker room at Damascus High School in 2017. The other three were attacked in 2018.
