The mother of a Black Harvard-Westlake high school boys water polo player claims she met twice with Jack Grover, the team’s head coach, on March 29, 2023, to discuss in detail concerns she had about the culture of a program in which her son and other minority players were regularly subjected to racial slurs and behavior.
The mother told Grover she feared her son “was being targeted and was not safe,” according to the complaint filed on behalf of her son in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Friday.
“Jack Grover appeared sympathetic” during the discussions, according to the filing. “He acknowledged Plaintiff’s mother’s concerns and assured her that he would personally look after Plaintiff. Jack Grover texted her, ‘my eyes are going to be on him.’ He promised to keep Plaintiff safe and to protect him moving forward.”
Instead Aidan Romain, then a rising star at both Harvard-Westlake and in USA Water Polo’s national team developmental program, not only continued to be subjected to racial slurs including the N-word on an almost daily basis, but he was repeatedly digitally penetrated by Lucca van der Woude, an older Harvard-Westlake teammate and at the time considered one of American water polo’s top Olympic prospects, according to the lawsuit.
The suit filed against van der Woude, Harvard-Westlake, Grover and the school’s president Richard B. Commons, alleges that starting with Romain’s first practice as a freshman with the school’s team in August 2022 until February 2024, that van der Woude repeatedly “sexually assaulted” Romain. The filing portrays a pattern of “repeated and sustained sexual assault at Harvard-Westlake School — and the school’s deliberate failure to act when confronted with repeated reports that a minor student was being sexually assaulted on its campus.
“This lawsuit is born of a profound and unforgivable injustice,” said Daniel Watkins, an attorney for Romain. “The truth is laid bare in the complaint — unvarnished, unflinching, undeniable. We welcome our day in court.”
Romain, who is 18, hadn’t previously been named by the Southern California News Group.
“Time and time again, on Harvard-Westlake’s campus — in its pool and elsewhere — Lucca van der Woude approached Plaintiff from behind to ambush and digitally penetrate him. Plaintiff reported this abuse to Harvard-Westlake immediately after learning that Lucca van der Woude was assaulting another teammate. But Harvard-Westlake did nothing. It took none of the steps that the school — as a mandated reporter of child abuse — was legally required to take,” the suit said.
An attorney for van der Woude did not respond to a request for comment about the suit. Grover and Commons also did not respond to requests for comment.
Van der Woude admitted in Los Angeles County Juvenile Division Court on Nov. 7, 2024, to sexual penetration with a foreign object (digital penetration) against a minor, according to Los Angeles County Juvenile Court, Los Angeles County Probation Department and U.S. Center for SafeSport documents obtained by the Southern California News Group (SCNG).
Neither van der Woude’s admission nor his arrest at Harvard-Westlake in February 2024 prevented him from transferring high schools, and leading his new school, Newport Harbor, to a CIF title, representing Team USA internationally or in December 2024 mentoring the nation’s top 13- and 14-year-olds at a camp sponsored by USA Water Polo, the sport’s Irvine-based national governing body, at the nation’s most prestigious Olympic training site, SCNG reported in March 2025.
Despite being informed by Romain and another Harvard-Westlake student that van der Woude had digitally penetrated them, Harvard-Westlake officials did not contact law enforcement or child protective services as required by law, according to the lawsuit.
Van der Woude was eventually arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on campus in February 2024.
“The Harvard-Westlake Defendants never called the police,” the suit said. “They never contacted the Department of Child and Family Services. They never notified Plaintiff’s parents about the sexual abuse. Instead, they looked the other way — and punished Plaintiff when he insisted on speaking the truth.
“Harvard-Westlake had a legal obligation to report the abuse and protect Plaintiff. And its failure to honor its obligations directly resulted in the continued abuse that Plaintiff was forced to endure.”
The lawsuit also details allegations that van der Woude and another Harvard-Westlake player “whipped (Romain) in the weight room in a re-enactment of slavery. They taunted him with racial slurs, calling him a ‘(N-word)’ nearly every day for approximately five months. When (the teammate) and Lucca Van Der Woude were questioned by the school, both admitted it. Harvard-Westlake still failed to take necessary steps to protect” Romain.
Romain’s parents also reported to Grover that Aidan had been assaulted by a teammate in the shower at the school, according to the suit. But it alleges that Athletic director Matt LaCour, after conferring with Grover, decided “not to protect (Romain), but to suspend him for four games.”
“These assaults were only part of the terror (Romain) endured at Harvard-Westlake,” the filing alleges. “The abuse was relentless, documented, and happened in plain sight.”
Van der Woude, a 6-foot-4 defender, was named the Orange County Register’s high school player of the year in the fall of 2024. He was a prized commitment for UCLA, the reigning NCAA champion. Van der Woude was later informed he would not be admitted to UCLA after the publication of the March 2025 SCNG report detailing his legal case and the allegations against him. Instead, van der Woude played for Golden West College this past season.
He was also a star on USA Water Polo’s national youth team, often a stepping stone to the Olympic and World Championships teams. The U.S. Center for SafeSport was informed on April 11, 2024, of allegations of van der Woude’s sexual battery of two Harvard-Westlake students and was provided with the names of school employees with alleged knowledge of the incidents, yet van der Woude continued to be invited to and participate, both as a player and mentor, in USA Water Polo training camps and international tournaments designed to identify and develop future Olympians, according to SafeSport documents and USA Water Polo records obtained by SCNG.
In December 2024, the sport’s national governing body enlisted him to mentor the next decade’s potential Olympians at a developmental camp at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee Training Center in Colorado Springs. Van der Woude was invited to the camp at the Olympic Training Center despite USA Water Polo officials being aware of his legal case and the allegations against him for at least six months, according to court filings, court records obtained by SCNG and interviews with USA Water Polo employees and two other people familiar with the case.
Program’s culture questioned in suit
“Not only was this misconduct known to Harvard-Westlake water polo coaches, it had become ingrained in the program’s culture,” according to the lawsuit. “One witness reported that at the beginning of the 2022 season, when Lucca van der Woude contracted conjunctivitis (‘pink eye’), comments were made in the presence of coaches, including Jack Grover, that he had acquired the condition from digitally penetrating his teammates before rubbing his eyes. This comment referred to Lucca van der Woude’s widely known pattern of sexual misconduct. No action was taken by the coaches to address the comment or the conduct it referenced.
“Harvard-Westlake’s inaction had consequences.”
Romain was just 14 and his family had just recently moved to Los Angeles when he was the only freshman to be invited to Harvard-Westlake’s varsity practice shortly before the start of the school year.
“This opportunity marked the realization of a long-held dream for Plaintiff, one he had worked toward for years,” the suit said. “But almost immediately, that dream collapsed. During his first varsity practice, Plaintiff was sexually assaulted by an older teammate, Lucca van der Woude, who digitally penetrated him underwater.
“Plaintiff jumped up in the water and yelped in surprise.
“Plaintiff knew the assault was wrong. It felt invasive and terrifying. But he said nothing — afraid that speaking up would cost him everything: his place on the team, the respect of his coaches, and the future he had worked so hard to build.
“Lucca Van Der Woude also digitally penetrated Plaintiff in the weight room.
“At the time, Plaintiff was still a ninth-grader on Harvard-Westlake’s Middle School campus — not yet on the Upper School where the team was based. He had not been fully accepted as a member of the varsity team.”
This, the suit said, created a “structural limbo” that made Romain vulnerable to alleged continued assaults by van der Woude.
The suit also alleges that on or about December 14, 2023, van der Woude “sexually assaulted” another Harvard-Westlake player, at the time a sophomore referred to in the filing as “Victim Two” during a practice session at the school pool by “digitally penetrating him underwater.”
The student reported the alleged assault to school officials and Sharon Cuseo, dean at Harvard-Westlake’s Upper School, interviewed Victim Two and Romain in her office with Jordan Church, dean of students at the school, present.
During this meeting, Victim Two told the officials that he had been digitally penetrated by van der Woude, and Romain, for the first time, also described to school employees how van der Woude had also “sexually abused” him, according to the suit.
Four other Harvard-Westlake players denied anything had happened between Victim Two and van der Woude.
“As a result, Sharon Cuseo explained, Harvard-Westlake could not do anything,” the suit said.
“Had Harvard-Westlake complied with its mandatory reporting obligations at that time, law enforcement and child protective authorities would have been notified immediately,investigative protocols would have been triggered, and protective measures could have been implemented before additional assaults occurred.
“Lucca van der Woude digitally penetrated Plaintiff for the final time in approximately January 2024, as Plaintiff was walking up a flight of stairs on Harvard-Westlake’s campus on his way to his French III Honors class. This wasn’t the only time that Lucca Van Der Woude had assaulted Plaintiff on school grounds and in the presence of classmates who were not on the water polo team.”
The suit also alleges that a teammate “and Lucca van der Woude constantly dehumanized Plaintiff by referring to him” with an abbreviated form of the N-word. “This constant degradation — which occurred virtually every single day for five months — was a frequent reminder of Plaintiff’s status as an outcast on his own team and important context for an environment with rampant physical abuse.”
“For example, on or about October 9, 2023, (the teammate) ridiculed Plaintiff over the fact that his ancestors had been enslaved and subsequently forced to pick crops.
The teammate “and Lucca van der Woude frequently complained about Plaintiff’s complexion, pretending that they couldn’t see him because his skin is too dark. The pair even referred to Plaintiff as the team’s “secret weapon’ during night games because — according to (the teammate) and Lucca van der Woude—the opposing team wouldn’t be able to see him in the pool because of the color of his skin.”
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