Uniforms and equipment belonging to Hayward’s Tennnyson High School softball team were removed from a locked storage locker on campus and thrown into a dumpster this week. Exactly who discarded the contents remains a mystery.

Tennyson’s softball coach Steve Griggs believes the act was deliberate and retaliation for a complaint filed earlier this year with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil right over the Hayward Unified School District’s alleged neglect of some female sports facilities at Tennyson High, according to the East Bay Times

The complaint asserts conditions at Tennyson High’s softball field and adjacent bathroom is substandard, especially when compared to the better maintained baseball field for the boys.

Griggs resigned from his postion shortly after becoming aware of the storage locker incident on Monday.

The lawsuit filed against the school district alleges violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act that forbids discrimination based on race, gender, and national origins for entities that receive federal funding.

Also included in the compalint  is an alleged violation of Title IX of the same act, which prohibtis the exclusion, based on gender, of students participating in federal funded program.

The nexus of Tennyson High administrators, the school district, and the sports world has led to questionable decisions in the recent past.

In 2016, Ray McDonald, a former San Francisco 49ers football player, was invited by the school to speak to underprivileged students even though he was currently on trial for allegedly sexual assaulting a former girlfriend.

The event, reported after it occurred in February 2016, touched off a firestorm of criticism against Tennyson officials and the school district’s then-superintendent, who approved of the NFL star’s appearance.

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