Lanier Law Firm representing former cheerleader in federal lawsuit
CORSICANA, Texas – Mark Lanier with the Lanier Law Firm has filed a Title IX lawsuit in federal court in Dallas on behalf of a woman who says she was urged not to report being sexually assaulted by a male cheerleader at Navarro College in Corsicana.
Lanier’s client, a former member of the school’s award-winning cheer squad, is suing the college, her former cheerleading coach Monica Aldama, and the man she says attacked her in September 2021 as she was asleep in bed.
“Her efforts to report it were stifled. The coach didn’t want to hear about it. Navarro College and their Title IX coordinator did nothing about reporting, writing up the report, investigating it or doing anything of the like,” says Lanier.
“It left her as someone who’s got to deal not only with the emotional trauma of being an assault victim, but also of trying to put together an education and a career. This clearly has to take on a different bent as she’s been blackballed from other cheer squads.”
The young woman says campus police and athletic director Michael Landers also urged her against reporting the assault. In addition, she claims that fellow cheerleaders threatened her with a gun after she filed a report with police, and that after she quit the team and withdrew from the school, Aldama offered to help her advance her cheer career at another college as long as she kept quiet.
The Navarro College Bulldogs Cheer Squad is considered one of the nation’s elite junior college cheerleading programs, having won 15 national championships since 2000. The team has also been the subject of the Netflix reality series “Cheer,” but in recent years has been involved in at least four nationally publicized scandals.
Defendants in this case are accused of violating Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and the Texas Constitution. The case in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas is 3:23-cv-00883, Lane v. Navarro College et al.
