A 14-year-old Colorado student and his parents plan to file a lawsuit after he was reportedly racially harassed at Castle Rock Middle School.
Yesterday (May 10), Denver7 revealed an interview with Jeramiah Ganzy, who detailed his unfortunate experience at the institution. He informed the interviewer the current semester was when it became terrible. “Mainly this year is when it got the worst on the bus and in school,” he said. “They’d be calling me, like, a monkey, the N-word. At the end of Black History Month, they were telling me it wasn’t my month anymore.”
During the conversation, Jeramiah alleged the discrimination against him didn’t end with fellow students. It also extended to the school’s staff. The 14-year-old shared an adult accused him of taking a water bottle. “She proceeded to ask me where I got the money for it,” he said.
The middle schooler told the interviewer he’d informed administrators about a Snapchat group featuring almost 100 students speaking negatively about different races and communities. “They were sending the N-word. [The students] were sending things against people of the Jewish religion. They were sending things against the LGBTQ community,” Jeramiah added.
Afterward, his mother, Lacey Ganzy, said the harassment against her son worsened. “There was a group of them calling for a lynching because my son had snitched and ruined their college future. And at that point, [Jeramiah] was immediately removed from the school.”
In March 2023, Jeramiah emailed the school district about feeling unwanted at his instiution, the outlet mentioned. However, the response was not enough for his family. “We’re not going to keep classifying things as bullying, and we are going to classify them as hate speech and hate crime because that’s what they are,” Lacey added. As Jeramiah finishes his school year online, his parents have retained a lawyer and plan to file a lawsuit against the school district.