Year After Student Suicide, Lawrenceville School Admits It Fell 'Tragically Short'

LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ — On April 30 last year, 17-year-old Jack Reid took his own life inside the dorm room at the elite Lawrenceville school.

On Sunday, the anniversary of Reid’s death, the school posted a public message admitting that it failed to protect the student from bullying and “cruel behavior” which led to him taking his life.

“Lawrenceville’s top priority is the physical, social, and emotional health, safety, and wellbeing of our students. We recognize that in Jack’s case, we fell tragically short of these expectations,” the school said in the statement.

The statement was part of a settlement reached between the school and Reid’s parents, William and Elizabeth Reid.

Reid arrived at the boarding school in 2020 as a sophomore. In the spring of 2021 false rumors that Reid was a rapist began to spread rapidly.

In September 2021, Reid was elected president of Dickinson House, a residential house where he lived. But his new role resulted in increased rumors and bullying, Reid’s parents told the New York Times.

The rumors also found their way online. Although the school investigated the rumors and found them to be untrue, they failed to make a public or private statement on the same.

“Jack was a victim of bullying and other forms of cruel behavior at Lawrenceville over the course of a year, including in the form of false rumors in person and online. When these behaviors were brought to the attention of the School, there were steps that the School should in hindsight have taken but did not, including the fact that the School did not make a public or private statement that it investigated and found rumors about Jack that were untrue. There also were circumstances in which the involvement of an adult would have made a difference,” the school said.

The school also failed to tell Reid, his parents or anyone that the rumors were bogus.

The day Reid took his own life, a student who was previously disciplined for bullying the teen was expelled for an “unrelated violation.” However, the student was allowed to return to Dickinson House largely unsupervised where students gathered, “including some who said harsh words about Jack. School administrators did not notify or check on Jack,” the school said.

That night, Jack took his life, after telling a friend that he could not go through with the ordeal again.

“In the ensuing months, the School undertook an investigation of the circumstances leading up to Jack's death. Reflecting on those findings, and discussing them with the Reid family, we acknowledge that more should have been done to protect Jack.”

The Lawrenceville School is among the highest-ranking, most sought-after boarding schools in the country, with around 823 students. The elite school costs a staggering $76,000 a year.

The school said it released the statement with the aim to honor Reid’s memory and outline the steps it will take to bring meaningful change to prevent something similar from happening again.

As part of its settlement with Reid’s parents, the school said it would take the following steps:

• Contract with a specialist on school bullying to help construct policies and training to identify and effectively address the behaviors that lead to bullying and cyberbullying.
• Contribute to the Jack Reid Foundation established by the Reid family focused on education and prevention of bullying.
• Hire a Dean of Campus Wellbeing, an endowed position focused on the variety of student mental health issues educational institutions face.
• Faculty, professional staff, and students will participate in trainings and workshops to raise awareness and promote better understanding of adolescent mental health.
• Consulting with outside experts as needed, Lawrenceville will continue to review and make improvements to its emergency response protocols and crisis response plans; it similarly will review the safety training it provides to faculty and staff to assure it aligns with best practices.
• Lawrenceville School will make a recurring gift to a mental health organization to support research and best practices for suicide prevention in school environments.

Unlike public schools that need to adhere to state laws on bullying, private and parochial schools have more autonomy in deciding how to address bullying.

“The School acknowledges that bullying and unkind behavior, and actions taken or not taken by the School, likely contributed to Jack’s death,” the Lawrenceville School said.

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, feeling hopeless, or engaged in self-harm call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or the New Jersey Hopeline at 1-855-654-6735, or text HOME to 741741.

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