Parents sue elite private school for expelling fifth-grader over squirt-gun emoji, rap lyrics

The parents of a fifth-grader are suing an elite private Mulholland Drive elementary school after their son was expelled over emails he exchanged with a classmate containing rap lyrics and the squirt gun emoji.

The parents allege that the disciplinary action was “arbitrary and capricious” and that the school provided no evidence of a policy being violated or of the classmate feeling threatened. They are seeking to reverse their son’s expulsion and recover their legal fees.

The petition was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday against the Curtis School and Head of School Meera Ratnesar, who made the decision to expel the boy. A Curtis School representative said the school was disappointed to learn about the litigation and could not comment on individual students.

On Sept. 5, the boy and a classmate sent emails back and forth with lyrics from the YNW Melly song “Murder on My Mind,” which contains references to guns and violence, according to court documents. Then on Sept. 25, the students engaged in another email exchange during their math class in which the son sent messages on his school-issued laptop saying, “Shut up” and “I hate you,” sent several green squirt gun emojis, and then said, “You dead yet,” to which the classmate responded, “No y.”

The parents said that the 10-year-old boys are friends and hung out during recess immediately after the Sept. 25 email exchange and also attended the school fair together at the Santa Monica Pier the following day.

A few days later, the boy was interviewed for about 10 minutes about inappropriate emails by the director of his grade and was told he would likely lose technology privileges at school, according to the petition.

Then on Oct. 1, the parents were called to a meeting with Ratnesar and informed that their son would be expelled and barred from campus. No disciplinary action was taken against the classmate who, according to email records, instigated the Sept. 5 exchange of rap lyrics.

“We are deeply disappointed by your decision to base expulsion on emails between two classmates who both showed a willingness to talk about guns based on a song’s lyrics,” wrote the parents in an Oct. 2 email to Ratnesar, urging her to reconsider the expulsion.

Ratnesar acknowledged in an Oct. 1 email that the classmate started the email exchange but said their son’s “contribution of lyric lines in addition to continuing to communicate threatening emojis and language 20 days after the lyric exchange, is a serious infraction that we cannot ignore.”

The boy had attended the school for four years and had no disciplinary record prior to the expulsion, according to the petition, which noted he was a straight-A student. The parents’ attorneys argue that expulsion of the student is a harmful disruption to his education and socialization with his friends and twin brother, who still attends the school.

The petition states that the emails do not appear to violate any school policies and that the squirt gun emoji is available on the school’s IT system. It further alleges that Ratnesar has a reputation for “unequal and arbitrary treatment of students” and contains, as evidence, several reviews left by former families at the school that discuss alleged favoritism and discriminatory treatment by the head of school.

Curtis School is a private school teaching developmental kindergarten through sixth grade. It has fewer than 500 students and annual tuition of around $38,000. Founded in 1925, the school is known for rigorous curriculum and has attracted several celebrity students, including the children of Victoria and David Beckham.