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Two parents in the Midlands region of South Carolina have filed suit against Richland County School District Two, alleging officials failed to prevent their son from being repeatedly bullied and harassed by other students.
Parents Tammie and Stephen Gilchrist named the district in a lawsuit alleging their minor son, then in sixth grade, suffered repeated bullying while attending Blythewood Middle School (BMS).
The Gilchrists have been outspoken critics of the district for years, having founded parental associations demanding accountability for “bullying and harassment” in the school district.
When a state inspector general’s report identified misappropriated funds and in 2022, Gilchrist told FITSNews the inquiry confirmed “issues that parents and community leaders have raised for quite some time: lack of transparency, improved governance and a board that seemed to be in disarray at times.”
The suit claimed that “based on their professional endeavors” Tammie and Stephen Gilchrist “are often at odds with the District and its employees over matters of politics and school policy.”
“Stephen Gilchrist advocated for parents’ right to homeschool their children during the administration of former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford Jr., works in support of state sanctioned charter schools during the administration of current Governor Henry McMaster, and supports the education reforms of President Donald Trump both now and during President Trump’s first administration,” the suit noted.
Stephen Gilchrist currently serves as a commissioner on president Donald Trump‘s Comission on Civil Rights.
His son, whose name was anonymized to “D.G.” in the summons and complaint, was allegedly harassed in class repeatedly by a student who had been previously been identified by administrators as a bully. After multiple incidents allegedly targeting numerous students occurred, the Gilchrists approached administrators and asked them to address the situation, per the complaint.
Officials told the Gilchrist family the issue had been “handled appropriately,” the lawsuit alleged.
The accused bully, identified in court documents as “A,” was said to have been unfazed by the school’s intervention.
“Shortly after the principal allegedly handled the situation, ‘A’ asked D.G. for a marker,” the suit stated. “Upon receiving the marker, ‘A’ promptly snapped it in half in a manner that was threatening to D.G. and other students.”
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According to the lawsuit “a sizable number of classmates labeled D.G. a ”snitch’ and harassed, bullied and/or intimidated D.G. for being a snitch,” in the wake of his reporting the alleged harassment to administrators, who “took no disciplinary action,” against the alleged perpetrator.
The suit alleged a pattern of downplaying reports of bullying:
“Student would report the misconduct,” it noted. “District employees and/or agents would criticize the victim for not reporting the episode sooner.”
“District would conduct an ineffectual investigation, thereby alerting the perpetrators that their victims had ‘snitched’ on them,” it added, noting that “little to no disciplinary action was taken by the District,”
Additionally, “reporting victims would suffer retaliatory or additional abuse for making the report,” the lawsuit claimed.
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RELATED | LAWSUIT CLAIMS DISTRICT IGNORED HAZING AND SEXUAL ASSAULT
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One such incident allegedly occurred in a school restroom, where “D.G.” claimed another student “used his cell phone to reach over a bathroom partition and take a photo of D.G. using the toilet,” which he proceeded to widely distribute on social media.
Individuals familiar with the social media post report the image was captioned “caught this n**** pooping.”
“Although District employees, staff and volunteers quickly learned of (the image) and who took it, (the school) took no disciplinary action concerning the incident,” the suit claims.
District officials allegedly argued “nothing could be done about the incident unless the parents filed a Title IX complaint” due to “rules put in place by President Trump,” per the complaint.
The Gilchrists brought the incident to the attention of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD), whose deputies prepared an incident report (.pdf) which reiterated allegations raised in the lawsuit.
The report claimed the student “did admit” to BMS administrators that he “took the photo because he thought it would be funny.”
Concluding D.G.’s “reasonable right to privacy was violated when (redacted minor’s name) knowingly took the photo of him in the bathroom stall using the bathroom,” the report noted that a charge of aggravated voyeurism was filed against the student.
This incident was one of many cited in the lawsuit, which claimed the pattern of alleged harassment led to a deterioration in D.G.’s mental health.
Just before the end of the school year, the complaint alleged one student threatened to take D.G.’s life on video – something he told his parents would only “irritate” teachers if it were reported.
In addition to filing a civil lawsuit, the Gilchrists’ also filed federal Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and Department of Justice (DOJ) complaints about the school’s handling of the situation.
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Gary Ginn, a former Richland Two parent who withdrew his child from the district told FITSNews a similar story about his son’s experience.
“In my son’s case, he was in middle school and he was being bullied,” Ginn stated. “We went to the school four or five times, talked to the principal, the assistant principal. They couldn’t suspend him, they couldn’t have any punishment for him, they couldn’t stop him from bullying.”
“I took him out of the middle school, I said I’m not going to deal with this if you can’t punish them,” Ginn added.
“Stephen was one of those guys who was fighting for his child, too,” Ginn said when asked about Gilchrist. “In my opinion, this is political.”
“I remain optimistic,” Ginn emphasized. “I don’t care what political affiliation you are, but we can’t have what’s going on today.”
Both Ginn and Gilchrist removed their children from the district to be educated elsewhere.
Reached for comment, Richland County School District Two communications director Darci Rush told FITSNews “the district does not comment on pending litigation.” In the event the district files a response to the Gilchrists’ civil complaint, we will certainly post relevant portions from that document.
FITSNews has covered the Palmetto State’s struggling school districts for years in an effort to hold those entrusted with our children’s futures accountable. We encourage those with relevant information to contact us through our tip line.
We also encourage anyone with an intelligent take on any of our articles to avail themselves of our open microphone policy…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
(Via: Travis Bell)
Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.
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3 comments
I wish the Gilchrists well and good luck in their endeavors to deal with this problem. I have observed schools and their failure to deal with bullies and bullying since well over fifty years ago. In all that time, the only thing that seems to have changed is the level of punishment the bullied student faces if he or she does the only thing that a bully will heed, and physically retaliates. Nowadays, the consequences for a bullied student who dares to physically retaliate are greater. Is it any wonder that when a student reaches his or her breaking point, that the result is too often a mass shooting or suicide?
I have long observed that some of the most gutless creatures on the planet were principals, administrators, and teachers. The level of gutlessness increases through middle and high school. They seem to fear not only the bully parents, but the bullies, more than anything. Oddly enough, where parents of a bullied student could once get in the face of a principal, get loud, and demand that the problem be fixed, the presence of SRO’s (aka school’s hired guns) and laws like “Disturbing Schools” protect these gutless, nutless, wonders from the parents of generally good and rule-abiding, bullied students who expect that their child not be treated this way.
Just as oddly, the aforementioned principals, administrators, and teachers, remain in fear of the bullies and their parents, despite the presence of their hired guns.
I really hope the Gilchrist family obtains results. This is an old problem that has only grown worse over the decades. There is no excuse for it to be that way.
We need competent administrators who are not afraid to enforce the rules for disciplining bullies and other disruptive students. The rules for student behavior should be sent to every student’s parent/guardian at the time the student is enrolled and at the beginning of every school year. Teachers should be reminded frequently of their duty to strictly enforce the stated rules in their classroom to the fullest extent or be subject to disciplinary action for failure to do so. Two violations for any student during a school year should result in immediate full suspension. When administrators fail to enforce the rules for student misconduct, they should be terminated after two such occurrences in any school year.
Good for both sets of parents. We have allowed woke administrators to rule for far too long.
Parents matter and their desires AND responsibilities should always be more important than the petty political and cultural concerns of administrators.