Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
On Wednesday, a Texas private school was ordered to pay $68,000 in damages to a black girl who came home from a 2016 school trip with rope burns around her neck, The New York Times reports. The girl’s family sued Live Oak Classical School in Waco after the sixth-grade school trip, claiming three of the girl’s white classmates “wrapped the rope around her neck and dragged her to the ground.” The family also alleged the injuries stemmed from bullying, and requested at least $5.3 million in damages. The Times reported that the school denied the injury resulted from bullying, claiming the rope “whipped past the girl and hit her in the neck” after her classmates attempted to raise a rope swing into the air.
The Travis County jury reportedly ordered the school to pay “$55,000 for the girl’s physical pain and mental anguish, $10,000 for disfigurement sustained during the episode and $3,000 for medical expenses.” The newspaper reported the girl, now 15-years-old, is currently being homeschooled. “Live Oak’s negligent supervision of a little girl entrusted to its care resulted in her strangulation on a school field trip,” the law firm who represented the girl’s family said in a statement. “The jury’s verdict vindicates the story [she] has begged the world to believe for two and a half years.”