After a teacher groomed and abused her during high school, a young woman turned to chiropractic care to reconnect with her body. It was so effective that she enrolled at Life Chiropractic College West in hopes of helping other survivors heal.
Instead, she says, she found herself reliving the trauma when a professor molested her at his private practice. When she tried to report the assault, the school ignored her, she says.
Apparently, she wasn’t alone.
A lawsuit claims that Cedric Stewart, 35, abused or harassed at least five pupils at his Hayward office and one in a hotel room during a class trip to Denver for a chiropractic conference.
Yet after several students sounded the alarm about the alleged misconduct to administrators at Life West, as it’s known, the school failed to alert the state licensing board, according to the complaint filed Friday in Alameda County Superior Court.
The college proceeded to book Stewart as a panelist at an admission fair and as emcee of its annual conference and donor event. Life West also continued to use a photo of him on promotional brochures.
Stewart didn’t respond to requests for comment. Neither did Life West administrators named in the complaint. Though some of the plaintiffs filed complaints with the California Board of Chiropractic Examiners, Stewart has no public disciplinary actions to his name.
R.D. — who, like all six plaintiffs, is identified only by her initials in the legal complaint — says symptoms she struggled with in the wake of her high school teacher’s abuse reemerged after Stewart’s April 2022 assault: panic attacks, migraines, insomnia, nightmares about rape, and weight gain. Her grades took a hit; she almost dropped out several times. She lost her scholarship and her tutoring job.
“She was so traumatized that she did not see a doctor for 1½ years after the assault,” the lawsuit reads. “She is still afraid to be alone with a doctor or chiropractor because her trust was so violated by Cedric Stewart.”
‘Illogical and confusing’
Like R.D., Stewart wanted to become a chiropractor because it helped him heal from injuries he suffered as an athlete at Adams State University, where he studied sociology and psychology, according to a bio on his website.
“When I played college football, I was searching for low back pain relief and nothing seemed to help,” he wrote. “I was convinced to see a chiropractor, and my stress seemed to fade away with every visit.” He goes on to say that in 2013 he realized his calling and that he “enjoys living in the Bay Area with his beautiful wife and their three young daughters.”
Five years later, he received his doctorate in chiropractic medicine from Life West, where he went on to become a full-time professor. A year after that, according to state records, he earned his license. In 2021, “on a leap of faith,” per his bio, he founded his practice, The Function Chiropractic and Wellness.
On Instagram, he goes by @doctorgoodbonesjr. He promotes the business with a video in which he “cracks” a patient’s spine in the exam room, selfies, and a meme about a wolf hunting its dream.
Several women say their ambitions led them to Stewart, who offered students a discount if they came for treatment at his private practice.
A woman whom the lawsuit calls C.P. says she enrolled at Life West in fall 2021 because chiropractic treatment had helped her recover from injuries she sustained as a professional dancer. A few weeks into the quarter, Stewart told students that patients felt sexually gratified during his adjustment sessions — a statement C.P. found “illogical and confusing,” the suit says.
She took him up on the offer for cheap sessions anyway, per the lawsuit, filling out an intake form that disclosed personal information. During that first appointment, C.P. says, Stewart had her lie on her back with hot stones in her hands, then hugged and kissed her.
C.P. told a therapist, who documented “her state of crisis and the interaction with a member of Life West’s staff who crossed physical boundaries,” leaving C.P. worried that Stewart would take advantage of her.
Students said Stewart had a propensity for bringing up his open marriage and using chiropractic sessions as an excuse for sexually intimate massage. And when the alleged victims responded unfavorably, they said, Stewart would spread rumors about them or hold their grades hostage.
‘I will always protect you’
When Stewart favorably falsified a grade for a woman called M.S., he made an unsettling promise: “I will always protect you as long as you always protect me,” she says in the suit.
“M.S. found the comment strange because she could not think of what he would need protection from, but she also felt that she owed him because he had changed her grade, despite her failing his class,” the lawsuit states.
It didn’t take long for the 21-year-old student to realize what Stewart would need protection from, she later told her attorneys. On a class trip to Denver for a chiropractic conference, M.S. stayed out drinking at Stewart’s behest.
“Later that night, M.S. texted [Stewart] because she wanted to order a ride back to the hotel but was worried that her hotel roommate would not let her in,” the lawsuit reads. “[Stewart] told her to come back to his hotel room and that he would order anything she wanted from IHOP and have it there for her when she arrived. Hungry and short on funds, M.S. gratefully accepted the offer.”
After the young woman ate the food, Stewart allegedly hugged and kissed her, and reassured her that they were just friends.
Stewart then “climbed on top of M.S. and began to talk about his sexual superpowers, including being able to hold off on ejaculating until his partner had as many orgasms as they could handle,” the lawsuit states. “He told M.S. that if she wanted to have sex with him, he would.”
She says she said no.
“Undeterred, [Stewart] exposed his penis and began to push it into M.S.’s vagina through her underwear,” according to the complaint. “M.S. moved her body and reiterated that she did not want to have sex.”
She slept, and when she woke, she left the room, the suit says. In the days to follow, she avoided eye contact, according to the complaint; she felt ashamed, and tried to avoid Stewart at all costs.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the school’s alleged inaction violates its obligations under Title IX, a federal law that bans sexual discrimination at educational institutions, and the Clery Act, which requires colleges to publicly disclose information about crimes on campus.
Life West has 30 days to file an answer to the complaint.