District Settles Bullied Ocean City Student's Lawsuit

OCEAN CITY, NJ — The Ocean City Board of Education settled a lawsuit for $85,000 filed by an Intermediate School student who claimed that she faced severe bullying and that school officials did nothing to help.

In the lawsuit, initially reported by open government activist John Paff, the 13-year-old girl says she faced racial and sexual harassment between 2016 and 2018 by a group of students that called themselves the "Super Slut Squad."

This group called the student racial and gendered slurs, cursed at her, punched her, threw objects at her, stole items from her locker, attacked her in the bathroom and pulled her pants down, as well as otherwise socially ostracizing her, according to the lawsuit.

The girl and her grandparents, who serve as her guardians, repeatedly told the district about the harassment, according to the lawsuit. But the principal would close the door to his office on them, the lawsuit said, and at one point when the grandparents tried to speak with the acting principal, he "threw his hands up in the air and said he did not want to hear any of their problems and to get the hell out of the office."

The harassment induced panic attacks and led to the girl attempting suicide more than once, the lawsuit said. She now has panic attacks when she is near the school, according to the lawsuit, and was forced to be homebound and now attends a different school.

The settlement means that the allegations have not been proven or disproven. The settlement also has a confidentiality clause, meaning that the girl would keep the settlement itself and its terms and amounts confidential. But since the school was the defendant, the public has a right to obtain the settlement agreement, as Paff did.

You can find the entire lawsuit and settlement agreement here, courtesy of Paff.