Former Harvard-Westlake Water Polo Star Lucca van der Woude Faces Shocking New Allegations
During the meeting, Ketchum says the group discussed the Holocaust, white privilege, and sexism, and that the boys were told that if more inappropriate slurs were uttered again, the group would no longer be allowed to play Minecraft online together. “[Van der Woude] went not just right back at it, but worse,” she says. “He just kept doing it, and he was laughing, and [the kids] all just stopped playing with him.”Last month, the witness says, her son forwarded her a TikTok about Romain’s lawsuit. After watching it, she decided to contact Romain’s attorney. “This kid has been at this for years,” she says. “This is not coming out of nowhere for him.”Nilda van der Woude did not respond to a request for comment.As the litigation continues, Black parents at Harvard-Westlake tell me that the school isn’t doing enough to address their concerns about racism and accountability when it comes to both the boys’ and girls’ water polo teams, and the school overall. “It appears to me that they’re just kind of treading water and hoping this moment will pass,” says one Black parent. Another speculates that, “It’s almost like the school is trying to shut down the questions and conversations before they even happen.”After my Vanity Fair story ran in March, school president Rick Commons, who’s a defendant in Romain’s civil suit, sent an email with the subject line “Recent Media Coverage” to parents.“Many of you have likely seen recent newspaper and magazine articles describing a lawsuit,” he wrote. “Because this pertains to a pending legal matter, we are limited in what we can say, but we want to be clear about the following: the school unequivocally disputes many of these allegations that mischaracterize facts and the school’s actions. The school treated reports of inappropriate behavior in the water polo program with urgency and seriousness, promptly initiating an investigation and complying with its mandatory reporting obligations. The school also cooperated completely with law enforcement.”“Whatever you might read or hear,” the email continued, “I ask that you place it in the context of what you already know about our school and your child’s experience. I ask that you measure these allegations against your own experience of this community and the values that guide our work.”His call for students and parents to consider whether their experiences aligned with or contradicted Romain’s allegations was seen as a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be Black at Harvard-Westlake, sources say.“Not everybody’s experience at Harvard-Westlake is the same,” says a Black parent who claims her child also experienced racism and discrimination while on one of the school’s water polo teams. “The lack of support, the lack of action, of intervention, letting things get so far out of hand until kids are harmed and families are impacted. Well, that was exactly my experience, Rick.”After receiving Commons’s email, an affinity group of Black parents asked for a town hall meeting during which they could ask school administrators questions. According to sources, they were told that Commons would prefer to have smaller fireside chats. Months later, “none of those have happened in my presence,” a Black parent tells me. “Nor have I received an email or anything inviting me to one of these said ‘fireside chats.’”
