The parents of former Stanford soccer star Katie Meyer have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the University, alleging that the 21-year-old goalie was distressed about facing discipline over an incident from August 2021. Meyer died by suicide in late February. She was a part of the 2019 national champion women’s soccer team, and stopped two penalty shots in Stanford’s 5-4 shootout victory over North Carolina after a scoreless draw.
The civil lawsuit filed Wednesday in Santa Clara County Superior Court says that Meyer spilled coffee on a Stanford football player who allegedly had sexually assaulted a soccer teammate. It also said that Meyer received a formal written notice on the evening of Feb. 28 — the same night she died — that charged her with a “Violation of the Fundamental Standard.” The violation put her diploma on hold a few months before she was supposed to graduate.
In the lawsuit, Meyer’s parents argue that the notice came after-hours while Meyer was “alone in her room without any support or resources,” and says that Meyer responded to the email “expressing how ‘shocked and distraught’ she was over being charged and threatened with removal from the university.” Her parents also allege in the lawsuit that Meyer had “an acute stress reaction that impulsively led her” to take her life, and that Meyer told Stanford employees in November 2021 that she had “been scared for months that my clumsiness will ruin my chances of leaving Stanford on a good note.”
Dee Mostofi, Stanford’s assistant vice president of external communications, said a statement on Wednesday that the school “strongly disagreed” with the lawsuit’s claim that Stanford was responsible in Meyer’s death and hadn’t seen the complaint.
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