An elite $46,000-a-year private school has come under fire for alleged rampant bullying and anti-Semitism and parents are now demanding change or else, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively. The Latin School of Chicago is a K-12 institution with a history of privileged graduates such as Nancy Reagan and the children of Illinois billionaire Governor J.B. Pritzker. But the parents, after staying silent as problems spiraled out of control, say the bullying and anti-Semitism their children face has intensified to the point that they have hired a high-powered lawyer to force the ‘vanity board’ of trustees to act.
Matthew Schwartz, a former federal prosecutor who helped take down Ponzi fraudster Bernie Madoff, fired off a scathing 37-page letter demanding an independent investigation while threatening litigation. The demand letter, obtained by DailyMail.com, cites an alarming litany of incidents. It says one 15-year-old committed suicide after alleged cyberbullying from classmates, a member of the cross-country team yelled at a teammate: ‘Run, Jew, run, there’s money at the end’, and several middle schoolers performed a Nazi anthem in band class.
Schwartz accuses officials of failing to crack down on this behavior while keeping families and even some trustees in the dark. Officials ‘have persistently failed to discharge their fiduciary duties, resulting in serious physical and mental harm to students and causing possibly irreversible harm to the reputation and financial sustainability of this once highly-respected institution’, the letter states. A spokesperson for the parents described the board of trustees as part of the problem, acting as a ‘rubber stamp’ for the school, more interested in the prestige of serving at an elite institution than providing aggressive oversight. As an example, he highlighted the spectacle last spring of students performing Horst-Wessel-Lied,’ aka ‘Raise the Flag’, the now-banned anthem of Germany‘s Nazi party.
‘In the Nazi anthem case, the instigator who is the nephew of the director of admissions and former head of DEI, was not only not disciplined, but allowed to speak at the commencement of the 8th grade graduation ceremony,’ the spokesman told DailyMail.com. The school’s once stellar reputation, however, has deteriorated so badly that a 100-plus person text chain of mostly Jewish parents, called the Latin Jewish Affinity Group, formed to share their frustrations. In May, group members expressed shock over the anthem incident and another where a hallway was left decorated with flags that included Palestine’s but omitted Israel’s. The spokesman said parents have been reluctant to speak out publicly, fearful their kids will be ostracized or miss out on prized recommendations for top-tier colleges.
‘There’s this hidden fear that you’re not only putting a target on your back, you’re also putting a target on your child’s back,’ the spokesman said. Speaking with DailyMail.com, one Latin School parent lamented that ‘the school has for over a century built an amazing reputation that is quickly heading downhill.’ The father, who’s supporting the legal action, described how one of his own children was viciously bullied by classmates, and said no disciplinary action was taken.
‘We’ve had multiple meetings where they use flowery language implying that they’re doing something, but they do jack all,’ he said. ‘They don’t even want to use the term ‘bullying’ because I suppose that could get them in trouble. Instead, they use phrases like ‘dynamic friendship incident’ or ‘social media incident.’ ‘The problems metastasize year in, year out, but they won’t address them in any substantive way,’ he added. Parents were introduced to the lawyer by Michelle Parker, a national legal consultant from New York who specializes in disputes involving private schools. ‘Latin School of Chicago is the epitome of what’s gone wrong in independent private schools,’ Parker told DailyMail.com. ‘You have a failure to adhere to the law or even follow their own policies,’ she said. ‘You have a lack of oversight, accountability, and transparency. And you have a parent body that sees the wrongs, sees the harm, understands that the school and children are suffering, but they’re silenced.’
Schwartz, who served ten years prosecuting financial crimes for the Southern District of New York, has been researching the Latin School since early last summer.