Miss Porter’s boarding school is being sued by senior Tatum Bass (UPDATE)

Update: 1/12/11

A settlement has been reached between South Carolina resident and Tatum Bass and Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut.

Bass, a former student, sued the school in 2008 contending that student in a secret society harassed her causing her to cheat on exams and miss a week of school.

After she was suspended from the private school, she sued saying that the school notified a college, where she had applied, about her 3-day suspension.

The amount of the settle has not been disclosed.

Original story

 The nation’s most selective, exclusive and well-respected boarding school, Miss Porter’s School, in Hartford, CT, is being sued in federal court by senior Tatum Bass and her family for allowing bulling to take place on campus.

According to the suit, Bass, who was elected by her peers as the activities director for the school, proposed holding the senior prom with other schools in the neighborhood.  Some rich snubs at the school, who called themselves “Oprichniki” (named after a Russian attack squad notorious for torturing suspected enemies), did not like the idea of mingling with the locals whose parents were not in the same tax bracket as their parents.

Bass, a native of South Carolina, insisted that her idea was a good one, and decided to pursue it, and that was when the bullying started.

At first, only the students who were on the dance committee were bullying Bass.  Then one day, Ms. Bass who was an honor roll student, uncharacteristically cheated on a history test, and that was when the bullying escalated  with students calling her “retarded” and “stupid” and she started receiving text messages by her fellow classmates peppering her with profanity and insults, and some of these insults were put on Facebook 

Racked by the guilt, she confessed to the headmaster of the165 year old school. The headmaster, Katherine Windsor, suspended her from school for three days.

The final incident that caused Bass to take this matter to court, was when her fellow classmates decided to put a “For Rent” sign on her bed, and the school, whose lists of former graduates includes Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Gloria Vanderbilt did not do anything about the sign.

In her suit, Bass claims that the school has inflicted long-term damage on her academic career by notifying at least one college about her suspension without giving her a chance to tell her side of the story.

The lawsuit asks a judge for an injunction barring Miss Porter’s School from sharing Bass’ academic status with college to which she has applied.