Former Women’s Hockey Coach Sues Harvard

On Tuesday, former women’s hockey coach Katey Stone, who retired 13 months ago in the wake of fierce complaints from former players about emotional abuse, filed a lawsuit against Harvard in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, alleging gender discrimination in the scrutiny that led to her departure. The suit claims that Stone was told she would be fired if she did not leave voluntarily. Unnamed “Jane and John Doe” defendants are accused of defamation, and the suit asks for damages of $5 million.

“Up until now, my voice has not been heard,” said Stone at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, at which three former players also spoke in support: Kalley Armstrong ’15, Nicole Corriero ’05, and Jamie Hagerman Phinney ’03. “Over a year and a half ago, Harvard began a process that ultimately ended my career,” Stone continued. “This process of investigation, evaluation and scrutiny was rooted in gender bias.” She said as the controversy grew, following reports by The Boston Globe and The Athletic, Harvard officials pressed her to remain silent: “From the beginning, Harvard advised me to be a mere bystander as my decades of hard work commitment, dedication, and success were attacked.”

Stone accused the University of forcing her out over false allegations. “Harvard remained silent and became complicit in the defamation of their loyal and most decorated coach. The loss of my career, my reputation, my ability to earn a living, doing the job I love is gut-wrenching. The damage has been real and affects me every single day.”

A Harvard spokesperson said the University does not comment on active litigation.

During 29 years at Harvard, Stone led the women’s hockey program to national prominence, winning 523 games—more than any other female coach in women’s hockey history—and training dozens of the sport’s biggest stars, including 24 all-American athletes, 15 Olympians, and six winners of the Patty Kazmaier award (which recognizes the top player in NCAA Division I women’s ice hockey). In 1999, she guided Harvard to a national championship, and under her coaching, the team went to four other national title games. In 2014, she became the first woman to coach a U.S. Olympic hockey team and led the United States to a silver medal.

The Boston Globe and Athletic investigations, published in January and March of last year, drew on interviews with dozens of former players, who detailed complaints of insensitivity and denigration; they said they had been body-shamed by Stone and that the coach had been inconsistent in the way she disciplined players. They claimed her treatment had affected their grades and academic performances, and that it led them to seek mental health care. The former players recounted instances of hazing and initiation practices that they claimed Stone had allowed, including forced alcohol consumption and “naked skates.” (Stone has said previously that she was unaware of any such practices.)

In March 2023, Harvard initiated an independent investigation into the alleged abuse, led by former federal prosecutor Katya Jestin, which did not find evidence that the team had fostered a culture of hazing. The investigation’s findings were announced on June 29 last year; Stone had announced her retirement three weeks earlier. At Tuesday’s press conference, Stone and her attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, criticized that timing.

The lawsuit also discusses an earlier internal investigation, launched in March 2022, after players had complained about Stone using the phrase “too many chiefs and not enough Indians” in the locker room, a remark that the lawsuit claims Stone immediately apologized for. The investigation concluded, according to the lawsuit, that Stone “did not create a toxic work environment and had not engaged in a ‘pattern of unprofessional conduct,’” although it recommended performance improvements. (That 2022 investigation was initiated by the then-dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay; both the lawsuit and Miltenberg criticized Gay by name, noting the controversies of this past school year that led to Gay’s own abrupt departure.)

Harvard’s actions toward Stone and its handling of the allegations against her stand in “stark contrast” to its treatment of male coaches, the lawsuit claims. “Harvard’s attack on Coach Stone is part and parcel of a larger culture at the University wherein female coaches are undervalued, underpaid, heavily scrutinized, and held to a breathtakingly more stringent standard of behavior than their male counterparts,” the complaint says.

The lawsuit also claims that Stone’s coaching methods were subject to a level of scrutiny not imposed on male coaches or men’s teams. Although Harvard “permits, if not openly encourages, male coaches to use their discretion in how best to coach and motivate the players on their respective teams, Coach Stone was harshly punished and excoriated for engaging in the same coaching strategies and behaviors.”

This was a topic Stone alluded to in her own remarks at the press conference as well. “Coaches are always searching to find the balance between pushing too hard versus affirming mediocrity,” she said. “While cultural norms make it more difficult to set a high bar, women who are strong, competent, competitive, and competitive coaches were once looked up to as role models. Today, these female coaches are viewed by too many athletes, parents, and administrators as being harmful, even emotionally abusive, the coaching profession is losing excellent coaches at an alarming rate as the scrutiny grows more intense and biased compared to our male counterparts.”

The former players who spoke described Stone as tough but compassionate. “The Harvard women's hockey program shaped me, gave me confidence, and taught me to really dig deep to understand myself and what made me special. My junior and senior years at Harvard were pivotal in beginning to understand who I was,” said Armstrong, a former Harvard team captain who now leads Armstrong Hockey, an organization for Canadian Indigenous Youth. “I would not be where I am now if it were not for her, the chance she took on me, the guidance and support she's offered, and her belief and confidence in me that I was missing in myself.”

Corriero recalled arriving at Harvard at 17 and struggling with imposter syndrome and a fear of failure. “I was grateful for the honesty that [Stone] always had and her emphasis on having to earn and work for the opportunities that you got,” Corriero said. “I was grateful for the confidence that she showed in me when I did not have that confidence in myself. I was also grateful for the times that she encouraged me to embrace roles and positions on the team that I wasn't used to and that I didn't particularly like, but I learned to accept because I knew it'd be for the betterment of the team.” A three-time all-American and former captain of Harvard’s team, Corriero is now an attorney in Toronto.

Hagerman Phinney, who stayed on after she graduated as an assistant coach with the team, played for 10 years with the U.S. national team and won a Bronze Medal in the 2006 Olympics. She is now a college counselor for Belmont High School in Massachusetts. She spoke of Stone’s philosophy on the ice (“Your individual output is a direct reflection of the efforts of your teammates”) and, through tears, recalled how Stone had supported her family several years ago when Hagerman Phinney’s young son fell ill and died. “When you are at your lowest living through one of life's most unfathomable cruelties, Katey Stone shows up,” she said. Later, she added, “Your players need you when they are in their most vulnerable moments, and that is why I stand beside her now.”

At the conclusion of the press conference, Miltenberg said his firm had not yet received a response to the lawsuit from Harvard. Asked what Stone is seeking in filing the suit, he said, “I think she wants her legacy back and a modicum of the respect and honor that she's earned.”