June 17, 2025
The Brief
- A family is suing Saint Anselm’s Abbey School in D.C., alleging their 12-year-old son was harassed due to his race and autism, with school administrators failing to intervene despite multiple complaints.
- The lawsuit claims the child faced racial slurs, disability mocking, and a physical attack by classmates, after which he was suspended for defending himself and then barred from re-enrolling.
- The family alleges the headmaster said they wouldn’t have accepted the child if they had known about his autism, despite being fully informed during the acceptance process.
WASHINGTON – A family is suing an elite private school in D.C., claiming their child was harassed because of his race and his disability – and that school administrators did nothing to protect him.
What we know:
The civil rights lawsuit was filed in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday against Saint Anselm’s Abbey School – a private Catholic all-boys school in Northeast D.C. with fewer than 300 students.
The child – who was in sixth grade at the time – is only referred to as John Doe to protect his identity.
The complaint claims the harassment occurred in 2022, when the 12-year-old started at St. Anselm’s in the fall and eventually withdrew in the spring.
“The mother sent dozens and dozens of emails, naming names, naming times, naming places where the harassment was occurring,” said Alisa Tiwari, an attorney at Cohen Milstein. “She sent screenshots of text messages with these images so there’s good reason to believe the school did in fact know what is going on.”
The lawsuit claims the child was harassed relentlessly by classmates because he is Black and has autism.
“Students told him that they could call him the N-word whenever they wanted,” Tiwari said. The lawsuit also contains photos mocking his disability and race that were allegedly texted to the child by classmates.
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“He is a fully functional kid where I think if he had gone anywhere else would have flourished academically and socially,” Tiwari said.
Read Family Sues Elite D.C. School Over Alleged Racial and Disability Harassment.