A fifth-grader was kicked out of one of the best private schools in Los Angeles for sending a friend a squirt gun emoji and rap lyrics, which led to the boy’s parents suing the school.
The 10-year-old was kicked out of Curtis School because of an email conversation with a friend who had squirt gun emojis and the words to the YNW Melly rap song “Murder on My Mind.” The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The Curtis School is a top-notch private independent grade school in Los Angeles. David and Victoria Beckham’s children have gone there and learned. The Hollywood Reporter says that the kindergarten school costs $28,760 a year.
KKTV got a copy of the lawsuit, which says that the boy was wrongly punished by the Head of School Meera Ratnesar “without evidence that his email exchange broke a school policy.”
The 10-year-old’s parents want to get him back into the school after being kicked out and offer to pay the family’s legal fees.
“[The] decision to expel [the student] and bar him from campus is arbitrary and capricious,” the suit said.
Based on the papers, the boys traded lines from the 2018 rap song “Murder on My Mind” on September 8.
My fifth-grade friend said, “Wake up in the morning I got.” To which the boy replied, “Murder on my mind.”
After more than two weeks, on September 25, the students were emailing each other during their shared first-period math lesson. They sent several squirt gun emojis.
The boy had a meeting on September 30 with the director and his homeroom teacher to talk about the emails. However, court papers say the boy was not shown the specific emails.
Ratnesar told the boy’s parents that he had been kicked out of school and would not be allowed back on campus for a while.
The school sent the following message to news outlets in the area:
“While we were disappointed to learn about the litigation, our priority is to ensure a safe and secure campus for all of our students,” it said. “We are unable to comment on individual students.”
Content Source: California prestigious private school sued after expelling boy, 10, for using squirt gun emoji, rap lyrics
