We are in the final days before our pretrial conference in this peer racial harassment case heading to trial in Newark, New Jersey. In this case, against the Lenape Valley Regional Board of Education, and Lenape Valley Regional High School Principal Douglas deMarrais, our clients Edward and Leeann Lee sued to recover damages to their then-teenage multi-racial son, who was harassed at school. They brought claims under federal and state laws prohibiting discrimination in school.
In the lawsuit, the defendants admitted much of the conduct the plaintiffs alleged in their Complaint. In fact, the principal admitted that E.L. (the student) was subjected to "an inordinate number of incidents [of racial slurs]" during his 13 months at Lenape Valley Regional High School, where he was one of only a small percentage of minority students. During discovery in this case, Mr. deMarrais admitted that between November 2004 and January 2006, Leeann and Edward Lee complained of racial slurs made to their son on multiple occasions, many of which the school confirmed. Defendants admitted the Lees complained that during his Freshman year (November 2004 thought June 2005) their son "E.L." was called the "n" word on the school bus on at least three occasions by three different students, another racial slur by a student on the basketball team, and another racial slur by three girls; and between September 2005 and January 2006, their son was called "ghetto or gangster" by a student who had called him the "n" word the previous year, called the "n" word by a girl who had used the word towards their son the previous year, was told he would be "picking [the] cotton" of a Caucasian student, called the "n" word by that same student a week later, and called the "n" word by another student shortly after.
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