A lawsuit accuses the Latin School of Chicago of failing to stop the bullying of a 15-year-old student who subsequently died by suicide.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the suit, filed by the boy’s parents, Robert and Rosellene Bronstein, says administrators at the elite private school failed to do anything about the bullying, even though they received numerous complaints from the boy and his family.
The student was “tormented on a regular basis” by students until he took his own life in January, the suit says.
The Latin School says in a statement that the allegations in the suit are unfounded and that it “deeply grieves” the death of one of its students.
The school has 1,190 students in prekindergarten through 12th grade. The 2022-23 tuition for grades 5 to 12 is $40,970.
The Bronstein's suit asserts that some students spread false rumors that their son was unvaccinated. Though he was vaccinated, the boy was harassed about his perceived vaccination status.
The bullying escalated from there, according to the lawsuit. He was told by a teacher in front of a class that he was going “nowhere in life,” the suit alleges, and was cyberbullied in a group text message thread by members of the junior varsity basketball team and on the social media app Snapchat.
In December, a student sent a Snapchat message to the boy encouraging him to kill himself, the suit asserts. The boy also talked to a school dean about the “monthslong abuse” he was enduring, but was disregarded, the complaint says.
He died Jan. 13.
