Lawsuit: Racial Bullying Led To Student's Suicide Attempt

ORLEANS – A lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court alleges that a student was driven to attempt suicide because of racial bullying he experienced while attending Nauset Regional Middle School.

The lawsuit by the nonprofit Lawyers for Civil Rights was filed Sept. 8 on behalf of Damion Walker and his son, who is not identified by name in the suit. The Nauset Regional School District, the Nauset regional school committee, Nauset Regional Middle School Principal Peter Cohen and the school’s assistant principals, Brett Costello and Michael Ciliberto, are all named as defendants in the suit.

The suit alleges that the student, who is Black, was the subject of physical and verbal bullying by white students. It charges that school and district officials failed to properly address the alleged bullying, even when it was brought to the attention of administrators by staff at the school.

“This case is about a school district that knew a Black child was being racially tormented by his white classmates — called the N-word, called a ‘slave monkey,’ and subjected to whipping gestures — and failed, again and again, to protect him,” the suit reads.

In a press release, Lawyers for Civil Rights said that middle school staff told administrators that the student was being “targeted because of his race.” A behavioral assessment of the student that was ordered by the school found that peer students were the source of the bullying, not the student, but that middle school staff “scrutinized” and “punished” the student by removing him from his classes “as though he were the offender,” according to the press release.

“No parent should have to watch their child go through what my son went through,” Walker said in the press release. “When we send our kids to school, we should have confidence they are being cared for. But my son nearly died because of Nauset’s failure to protect him from extreme racism, and they must be held accountable.”

The lawsuit alleges violations of the state’s anti-bullying law, Student Anti-Discrimination Act and Civil Rights Act, as well as the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. It also alleges that the district and regional school committee allowed a “hostile educational environment.”

“The Nauset Public Schools strive to foster an inclusive environment for all students and are committed to maintaining a school setting that is free from all forms of harassment and discrimination,” Nauset Superintendent Glenn Brand said in a statement Thursday. “While the District takes this matter very seriously, student confidentiality laws prevent me from commenting on specific student matters.” 

Cohen did not respond to a request for comment.

According to the suit, the student began attending the middle school as a sixth grader in 2021. At the time, approximately 82 percent of students at the school were white, while just under 5 percent of students were Black, the suit states.

The student was immediately subject to racial bullying, according to the lawsuit. As a result, the student began expressing suicidal thoughts online and to other students, as well as in the form of a poem.

But the lawsuit alleges that middle school officials responded by “treating the Black child as the problem,” and “scrutinized” his “problematic” and “disruptive behavior.” After being diagnosed with ADHD, the student was put on an individualized education program, which the lawsuit said may have addressed his “academic or psychological development,” but “did not address the hostile environment he continued to face in school.”

The alleged bullying continued in the 2022-2023 school year, the lawsuit alleges. The student was allegedly subject to verbal harassment, such as being called a “slave monkey” and being told that he looked “as Black as the spaceship” in a movie that was shown in class. In another incident, the student was allegedly called the n-word and told “it’s a good thing it’s your month,” a reference to February being Black History Month.

In other instances, the alleged harassment was physical. That included an incident in which the student’s glasses were allegedly taken from him, and another in which a student grabbed his buttocks before jumping on him.

“Across all these racially hostile incidents, the District failed to meaningfully promote accountability, repair relationships, foster reconciliation, or ensure [the student] felt safe after incidents of bullying or harassment,” according to the lawsuit. “Instead, any response by NRMS was merely perfunctory and procedural.”

The bullying allegedly led the student to attempt suicide by ingesting 30 pills, according to the lawsuit. The student also allegedly told hospital staff that bullying was “100 percent the reason” behind the attempt. The lawsuit also alleges that middle school staff did not contact a school resource officer about the bullying until three days after the suicide attempt. 

The harassment continued after Damion’s son returned to school after his hospitalization, according to the lawsuit. It is alleged that upon his return, a student asked their classmates to raise their hands if they wanted the student “to kill himself,” which at least one student responded they did.

The student, now a junior at Nauset Regional High School, has seen improvements in his “health, academic performance and socialization” since leaving the middle school, the lawsuit states. But he continues to be “weighed down” by the alleged bullying he endured at the middle school. The student’s “feelings of trust, belonging, and safety in school were compromised” due to the bullying, according to the suit.

A middle school staff member “confirmed that numerous other students of color experienced peer racial bullying,” according to the lawsuit. That includes an Asian student who was subject to “homophobic cyberbullying.” In that case, it is alleged that former Nauset Superintendent Brooke Clenchy did not respond to the student’s parent’s concerns, and that the school failed to follow its own bullying prevention and intervention plan. Instead, it is alleged that the student, rather than the aggressors, was transferred to another “team” of teachers within the school. 

That student has since left the district to attend school in Provincetown. The student’s parents did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

In another incident, parents raised concerns about “race based exclusion” when four Black students were not selected to join the boys basketball team in winter 2024.

The Chronicle first reported on the allegations made in the lawsuit in January 2025. At the time, Cohen and Clenchy acknowledged the incident and others. They said that protocols that have since been put in place at the middle school have helped curb the number of reported bullying incidents in the school.

But the lawsuit claims that these incidents were not isolated, but rather indicative of a “broader pattern” within the Nauset district of administrators “dismissing and discrediting students of color who report racial bullying, and retaliating against staff who report racial bullying.” The lawsuit claims that Cohen denied a request from staffers to receive additional “racial discrimination, bullying, and civil rights training.”

The lawsuit also alleges that middle school students have been disproportionately disciplined based on race. During the 2023-2024 school year, it is alleged, “Black students were disciplined at nearly three times the rate of white students.”

The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for “all losses” incurred through the defendants’ “unlawful acts,” as well as “an amount of money that will fairly compensate them for the physical, emotional, and dignitary pain and suffering caused by Defendants’ unlawful acts.” They are also calling for “systemic changes” to be made to the district’s “policies, practices, procedures, and trainings” and for the district’s bullying prevention and intervention plan to be updated in accordance with state law.

Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com