A prestigious New Jersey boarding school has admitted it didn’t do enough to protect a student who took his own life on campus after being harassed and bullied by his peers, who spread rumors that he was a rapist.
Jack Reid, 17, attended The Lawrenceville School in Mercer County, five miles south of Princeton University, where tuition costs a staggering $76,000 a school year.
On April 30, 2022, Reid took his own life after being subjected to vicious bullying, which was contrived by cruel and misleading rumors labeling him a rapist.
“The school acknowledges that bullying and unkind behavior, and actions taken or not taken by the school, likely contributed to Jack’s death,” Lawrenceville officials wrote in a statement posted on the school’s website on Sunday.
The statement was part of an agreed-upon settlement between the notable boarding school and Reid’s parents, Elizabeth and Bill Reid.
“The only thing I’d love to change here is to get Jack back,” Reid’s father told the New York Times.
Reid arrived at the boarding school in the fall of 2020 as a sophomore, befriending classmates, and winding up honored on the Dean’s list, his parents said.
But the following spring semester, a rumor that he was a rapist began spreading like wildfire through the student body.
Despite the rumor, Reid returned to the school in September of 2021, and was elected president of the residential housing where he lived.
However, the teen’s new role only increased the rumors and bullying, his parents...
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