Siobhan St. John, a former assistant cheerleading coach who worked with Ohio State for 10 years, filed a lawsuit March 14 alleging racial, gender and religious discrimination. Credit: Lantern File Photo

Siobhan St. John, a former assistant cheerleading coach who worked with Ohio State for 10 years, filed a lawsuit March 14 alleging racial, gender and religious discrimination. Credit: Lantern File Photo

Siobhan St. John, a former assistant cheerleading coach who worked with Ohio State from 2014-24, filed a lawsuit March 14 alleging racial, gender and religious discrimination against the university.

According to the complaint, the alleged discrimination led to St. John’s “wrongful discharge” June 20, 2024. St. John officially filed the lawsuit through the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

Carey Hoyt, Ohio State’s senior associate athletic director, and Benjamin Schreiber, the university’s head cheerleading coach, are also named as defendants in the lawsuit, according to the complaint.



In a March 24 email, university spokesperson Ben Johnson said Ohio State will not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit accuses the university of violating Title IX, alleging that “during [St. John’s] ten (10) years of employment by OSU as an assistant coach of its Cheer Team, she was subjected to persistent unlawful discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, gender and religious commitment,” according to the complaint. 

The complaint states St. John was “an outspoken advocate for the employment-related advancement of African-American Athletic Department employees, particularly African-American women.” 

During her coaching stint at Ohio State, St. John served on the Buckeye Inclusion Committee, which promotes the upward employment of African-American employees at the university within its athletic department, according to the lawsuit. 

The lawsuit also states Hoyt and Schreiber subjected St. John to discrimination and hostile treatment based on her race and gender, claiming the pair exhibited “discriminatory animus toward African-American women.” 



St. John alleges that on one occasion, Hoyt and Schreiber prevented her from applying for a new position in the program — “Spirit Program Coordinator” — by failing to post it publicly and instead directly appointing Melissa McGhee, who had previously served as the dance team’s part-time coach.

In addition, the lawsuit claims St. John was more qualified for the role, but was not considered because she is an African-American woman and an advocate for African-American employees at the university. 

St. John states in the lawsuit that during an August 2023 cheerleading practice, Schrieber separated the cheerleaders by race, putting the blonde cheerleaders in the front and the brunette cheerleaders in the back. When St. John commented that all of the African-American cheerleaders on the team were brunette, the lawsuit states Schreier replied, “Show me where I can’t say that.” 

St. John reports further interactions became more hostile after this incident, citing a situation during which Schrieber threw St. John’s set of keys on the floor after borrowing them, making her retrieve them from the ground, according to the lawsuit. 

In January 2024, when St. John was on vacation in Africa, Schreiber allegedly conducted a cheer team survey and prevented St. John from receiving email communications related to the Spirit Program, according to the lawsuit.



In February 2024, Schreiber changed the Cheer Team practice schedule and did not update St. John, according to the lawsuit. When confronted about this lack of communication, Schreiber reportedly admitted to withholding the updated schedule from St. John, according to the lawsuit. 

St. John said she reported this behavior to a human resources employee in the university’s athletics department, according to the lawsuit. St. John alleges the employee, Krissy Mullins, took no action and referred St. John to the university’s Employee Labor Relations Human Resources Department, according to the lawsuit. 

St. John was then put on a performance improvement plan by Hoyt, which she believes “was designed to create a pretextual foundation to discharge [her] from her employment,” according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit states this document creates a false record of misconduct, as St. John claims the meetings referenced in the plan never took place. 

In the lawsuit, St. John also states she faced religious discrimination, as Schreiber purportedly complained that St. John “had missed practice time in order to attend religious services at her church on Sundays, even though practices were generally not scheduled on Sundays.”

Subsequently, St. John filed two complaints in the university’s Human Relations Department and the then-Office of Institutional Equity — now known as the Civil Rights Compliance Office — detailing race-based and gender-based discrimination, according to the lawsuit. St. John then took a leave of absence from April 29, 2024, to June 10, 2024, to help “recover her emotional stability.” 

Upon St. John’s return, the cheer team received headshots and formal staff introductions. Everyone except for St. John was reportedly included, according to the lawsuit. 

St. John was notified June 20, 2024, that her role would be abolished “[d]ue to lack of funds and reorganization for efficiency,” according to the lawsuit. 

Now, St. John “demands judgment for compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and costs of suit,” the lawsuit states.