ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Parents of a McQuaid Jesuit student filed a lawsuit against the school, claiming it allowed their son to be discriminated against and harassed.
The 16-year-old student is referred to as Joseph Doe throughout the court documents.
The lawsuit claims the school not only violated Title IX by failing to stop the harassment, but also failed to provide a reasonable accommodation for Doe’s disabling medical condition.
“At defendant McQuaid, the ‘boys will be boys’ philosophy prevails over its legal obligations to prohibit sex discrimination, creating the perfect conditions for bullying, sexual harassment, and sexual predation of students by their peers to flourish,” the lawsuit reads.
According to the lawsuit, students at the all-male, Catholic school regularly made racist and sexist remarks. When Doe reported his classmates’ behavior in 2022, he said “very little was done” in response apart from one student being sent to detention.
Because Doe perceived those earlier reports to be ignored by the administration, the lawsuit claims he did not immediately report when, in late 2022, a student “inappropriately” touched Doe’s shoulder, inner thigh, and groin.
The lawsuit claims this happened throughout the 2022-23 winter, until Doe threatened to punch the offending student in March, 2023. The student allegedly stopped soon after, telling Doe he did it because another student paid him with “a few dollars or snacks.”
According to the lawsuit, Doe was diagnosed with anxiety and depression during this time and began having panic attacks at school. Doe’s parents told administrators those issues were “caused by his peers’ harassment.”
The lawsuit claims Doe quit the school baseball team due to continued bullying. When Doe reported the behaviors to the school, he was allegedly told to “not let the actions of others affect his experience” at McQuaid.
This, the lawsuit claims, meant “defendant McQuaid viewed his experience as a situation Joseph Doe needed to think about differently, rather than a problem defendant McQuaid needed to address.”
The school’s “lackluster response” to Doe’s reports caused his anxiety and depression to worsen, the lawsuit claims.
In May of 2023, Doe went to the nurse’s office in a moment of “significant anxiety” and took a medication prescribed by his doctor. According to the lawsuit, he was left alone in a darkened room at that point, until he texted his father saying he was struggling and needed to be picked up from school.
The lawsuit claims Doe’s father contacted someone at the school, telling her to check on Doe because he shouldn’t be left alone. When she turned on the light and offered a chance to talk, “he declined and seemed quite content to be laying down with the lights off in the nurse’s office,” the employee reported.
The lawsuit claims Doe went into the nurse’s bathroom, wrote a suicide, note, and made multiple suicide attempts with his tie before and after the employee left the room.
During this time, the lawsuit claims no one at the school “utilized the grounding activities tool resource designed [to] assist Joseph Doe in times of crisis despite this document being sent” to officials there.
Days later, Doe told his parents about the alleged harassment from earlier in the year. His parents met with administrators the next day, but the lawsuit claims the school did not give them any information about how the allegations would be investigated. Doe’s parents then contacted the Brighton Police Department.
Doe did not return to McQuaid after the meeting, according to the lawsuit. In June, 2023, police told his parents no criminal charges would be filed.
The lawsuit claims McQuaid Jesuit expressed “deliberate indifference” to sexual harassment, fostered a hostile environment, violated NY human rights laws against sexual harassment, was negligent in supervising its students, breached its contract with Doe and his family, and intentionally inflicted emotional distress. The plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial to determine damages.
McQuaid Jesuit issued a response Wednesday evening, saying:
We are aware of the lawsuit filed against McQuaid Jesuit, on behalf of a former student. Given that student information is protected from disclosure by law, we are unable to provide detailed commentary at this time. McQuaid Jesuit is guided by our values and our mission as a Jesuit institution and our top priority remains providing a safe and supportive learning environment for all students
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