SEATTLE — A family whose child used to attend University Prep is suing the school for $1.2 million.
The family members, who wished to be identified by their initials for privacy reasons, said that their son had been verbally and physically bullied for three years, before the elite private school finally expelled him.
C.L., who is now 18, was expelled in the spring of 2012 at the end of his junior year, after enduring physical assaults, and racial and homophobic slurs.
See the court document here.
His mother said that school officials informed them of the expulsion over the phone, after inviting him for his senior year and accepting his deposit just months before.
His mother, A.L., remembers the phone conversation, which she was given permission to record.
"We hate to tell you, your son does not fit within the social fabric of our school," she said.
She said the administrator continued to repeat the phrase that he "did not fit within the social fabric of the school."
She said they also cited his open criticism of the school administration for why he would not be graduating with his class. When she asked if he had violated any school policies, she was told he had not.
A spokesperson for University Prep gave KIRO 7 this statement:
"The school vigorously denies the allegations in the complaint but due to confidentiality concerns cannot comment further at this time."
C.L. described some of the worst moments: "I would be walking down a hallway, and a guy would come up behind me and throw me into a wall. Then I would turn around and ask, what are you doing? Then he would start punching me and kicking me in the shins."
He said he would also be targeted for working hard in class and participating in many extracurricular activities, like being a student ambassador, or being elected as a class honor representative.
"They would call me an 'overachiever' and associate that with being white," he said.
C.L., who is half African-American and half Caucasian, has immigrant parents who worked hard to succeed in Seattle.
He described his bullies as among the elite, some of whom were "extremely wealthy."
His attorney, Yvonne Ward, said, "It seems that unless your last name is an old Seattle family, you will not be protected at U Prep. And that's got to stop."
C.L. said that he tried to tell his bullies to stop and approached teachers and staff. But to his knowledge, no one was ever disciplined, let alone suspended.
While some teachers had long conversations with those involved, others told C.L. the bullying was something he would have to accept in the classroom.
His parents describe his behavior change from a happy-go-lucky child to a student who had lost self-esteem.
After being kicked out of University Prep, he spent his senior year at a boarding school in Ireland, where he has other family.
He is now back in the U.S., taking community college classes in order to transfer to a top college.
His dream of attending an Ivy League school to study business and finance has definitely become more of a challenge after this experience.
"I was crestfallen. I really enjoyed my time at University Prep, apart from the bullying. I was also rather confused, as I was unsure of what I had done wrong," C.L. said.
Now his family hopes the school will change its policies to better protect future students.
The head of school, Erica Hamlin, is named in the complaint. But University Prep will have a new head of school beginning in July 2014.
The University Prep website lists its tuition as more than $25,000 a year. The site also states there are more than 500 students in its sixth-through-12th-grade program, and 31 percent of students are minorities.
KIRO
