Court Filings Allege Ugly Behavior By Expelled Ursuline Student

NEW ROCHELLE, NY — School officials say that a private institution's right to exclude a student over hateful off-campus behavior is at the heart of a lawsuit against The Ursuline School.

Lawyers for the school are seeking to end a temporary restraining order that is allowing the expelled student to remain at the school. A judge issued the order reinstating the student in part because the high school girl at the center of the lawsuit insisted that she had been unfairly singled out for behavior that did not result in similar punishment for her peers who also participated in social media activity the school deemed offensive.

In its most recent court filing asking a judge to vacate the restraining order allowing the teenager to remain at Ursuline, the school described a pattern of repeated racist and offensive behavior by the student. School officials allege that the student admitted to some of the most egregious incidents when confronted by administrators.

“In a series of vulgar and shocking social media posts, Plaintiff maligned Chinese people, made racist remarks about African-Americans and used language and gestures that are crude and offensive,” lawyers for Ursuline wrote in a court filing asking a judge to remove the student immediately. "When Plaintiff’s conduct was brought to the attention of the school, it promptly suspended her and commenced an investigation. Acting in accordance with its policies and procedures, the school established a 'Designated Team' to look into the matter, spoke to plaintiff and her mother, deliberated and, based on undisputed facts, came to a unanimous decision to expel."

School officials attested in court papers that other social media posts involved the student wearing blackface and using the N-word on more than one occasion. Far from being apologetic about her behavior, the student instead insisted that some of the offensive posts represented her true feelings, attorneys for the school claimed in the filings.

The expelled student's lawyer, George Galgano, has accused school officials of using doctored images and lying about the girl's expression of regret over past offensive social media posts. He told the court that the school initially cited a TikTok dance video for her expulsion, but the attorney said dozens of other students, and even a faculty member, were known to have participated in similar videos without being fired or expelled.

After the girl filed a $1 million lawsuit, Galgano said, administrators began to change the reason for the expulsion, by citing behavior that occurred prior to her ever having attended the school.

"They know she's not a racist," Galgano told the Journal News's David Propper on Nov. 12. "They know that the posts that were sent to them were manipulated."

The girl enrolled at the school in 2020 and returned two months ago for her junior year after a court order staying her expulsion, according to court papers.

The girl's attorney told the court that he had hundreds of videos that show that the school has ignored similar behavior by other students. "Given the ages of the girls depicted and the sexual nature of many of the posts depicted, the videos are not annexed as an exhibit," the lawyer told the court.

"This is a teaching moment and not a time where the school should be taking an unwavering and unforgiving position of intolerance," Galgano wrote in court papers. “[She] is remorseful, and she deserves forgiveness and understanding ... And the school should accept some responsibility for this pervasive problem that exists across all public and private schools in this country. There is no place for TikTok on school grounds. Yet the bulk of the videos, I've seen are in classrooms, at sporting events, in cafeterias and on school grounds in plain view. "