A lawsuit alleges a 15-year-old boy committed suicide after he was bullied by a false rumor regarding his vaccination status.
Filed Monday by the boy’s parents, the lawsuit alleges administrators for the Latin School of Chicago committed “wilful failure” to prevent the incessant bullying against 10th grader Nate Bronstein.
Though Bronstein had actually been vaccinated against the coronavirus, the lawsuit claims the bullying against him was relentless as a rumor spread branding him unvaccinated. Bronstein reportedly transferred to the school amid the pandemic due to the in-person learning.
Several employees and parents of the alleged bullies are defendants in the lawsuit, according to the New York Post.
“The boy’s parents, Robert and Rosellene Bronstein, even reached out to the other student’s family about the constant badgering, the suit claims,” noted the Post. “But the harassment only worsened — with Nate being told by a teacher in class that he was going ‘nowhere in life,’ according to the lawsuit.”
“The teen was also cyberbullied on Snapchat, where another student urged him to kill himself in mid-December, the suit claims,” it added.
Though Nate had met with a school administrator, the students involved were not disciplined for their cyberbullying. When Nate’s mother contacted a school counselor about the problem, they reportedly dismissed her concerns as “family issues.” His mother reportedly contacted the school 30 times between the months of October and November, but administrators turned a “blind eye,” the lawsuit alleges.
Within a month of the cyberbullying incident in which a student allegedly urged Nathan to kill himself, his father found him hanging from a noose in the shower. According to his mother, Rosellene Bronstein, the parents did not know Nathan had requested a meeting with the school’s dean over the Snapchat bullying.
“We would have known, and we would have protected him, and he’d still be here today,” she told CBS Chicago.