High School Student with Disability Who Had to Sit in Audience for Graduation Files Lawsuit: ‘Humiliating’

Lawyers for the student allege that what happened on graduation day was the latest in a series of ways Lee was mistreated by the school

• Kennedy Lee has sued the Weakley County Board of Education after she and the two other graduating students from Greenfield High were forced to sit with the audience instead of with their peers during graduation

• The suit also alleged that Lee and another student with POTS spent nearly the entirety of her school day during her junior year in a “former storage closet,” as the school claimed her disability was “too much of a disruption to other students”

• “This case involves extreme prejudice and insecurity towards persons with disabilities,” read the complaint, which was obtained by PEOPLE

A former Tennessee high school student with disabilities has sued a school board after she and two other graduating students were forced to sit with the audience rather than with their peers after a series of alleged “prejudice.”

Kennedy Lee previously told PEOPLE that she and two other graduating Greenfield High School students were relegated to the bleachers at their May 17 graduation ceremony.

“It really hurt that I was not given these same opportunities as my other classmates, and my entire high school career has not been normal,” Lee said at the time. “So I just wanted one night to be a normal student and be treated like a normal student, and that was robbed of me.”

On July 12, lawyers for Lee filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against the Weakley County Board of Education, alleging that what happened to her on graduation day was the latest in a series of “humiliating” ways Lee was mistreated by the school.

“This case involves extreme prejudice and insecurity towards persons with disabilities,” the complaint, which was obtained by PEOPLE, stated. “To the Greenfield High School administration, persons with certain neurological disabilities should be ushered away, not seen, segregated from their peers.”

According to the suit, Lee, has postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) — a condition that “causes your heart to beat faster than normal” when transitioning from sitting down to standing up, which can cause fainting, according to the Cleveland Clinic — as well as a functional neurological disorder.

Instead of following the student’s 504 plan, which protects the rights of students with disabilities and is supposed to remove barriers to learning, the lawsuit alleged that Lee spent much of her junior year at Greenfield High in a former storage closet, which the school cleaned out and placed cots in.

“WCS [Weakley County Schools] confined and ostracized Kennedy,” the complaint read, “and the other student with POTS, to the storage closet for all of their junior year of high school, the 2022-2023 school year, with no access to non-disabled peers, no access to extracurricular activities, no access to special classes like art or music, no access to eating lunch in the cafeteria with peers, no access to use of the library, and limited to no access to teacher instruction in the general education curriculum.”

“WCS gave Kennedy an online curriculum different from and lacking that of her non-disabled peers in the regular education classrooms,” added the complaint.

An attorney representing the school district did not respond to PEOPLE’s repeated requests for comment.

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According to the lawsuit, Lee’s disability called for “reasonable accommodations” from the school, like getting additional time to complete assignments and being allowed to sit near teachers and friends, just in case she needed help.

“Rather than abide by the 504 Plan, WCS went to humiliating extremes,” the lawsuit claimed. “It put Kennedy and another student in her grade who also had POTS in a former storage closet. WCS cleaned out the closet, then placed two cot beds on each side, one for each student. The nurse sat in the closet too, at a small desk,” read the lawsuit, which included a photo of Lee in the alleged closet.

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The complaint claimed these measures were put in place because the school allegedly said that her POTS disability was “too much of a disruption to other students.”

“Having suffered the prejudice and indignity of being isolated to the storage closet, and with WCS offering no other viable alternatives, Kennedy went on homebound status for the 2023-2024 school year, her senior year,” the suit added.

By graduation, the lawsuit noted that Lee had looked forward to walking on stage with her classmates during the ceremony. But as PEOPLE previously reported, she instead sat with the audience during the official event.

“This decision targeted Kennedy’s disability,” the suit alleged. “The principal said WCS did not want Kennedy ‘falling out’ on the gym floor with someone coming down from the audience to rescue or assist her. That, the principal said, would be embarrassing for the school if posted on social media.”

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The complaint alleged Lee’s mother raised the issue of graduation with the Weakley County’s Director of Schools, who reportedly “sympathized” but did not correct the principal.

In an earlier statement regarding Lee’s allegations surrounding Greenfield High’s May 17 commencement, Weakley County Director of Schools Jeff Cupples said that all district “graduation ceremonies are planned to ensure the safety of all participants.”

“Weakley County Schools does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, disability, national origin, gender, age, political affiliation, or beliefs,” concluded the statement.

Lee previously told PEOPLE that she did consider boycotting the ceremony but decided against it.

Instead, she attended and “watched her graduating classmates file in, while she walked in separately and sat in the bleachers,” per the complaint.

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“After graduation, WCS created social media postings of the graduating class of 2024,” the suit read. “Noticeably absent, not even mentioned, were Kennedy and the other two students with disabilities. This would be the final humiliating act of segregation and exclusion that Kennedy experienced.”

In addition to “reasonable attorney’s fees and costs” as well as “compensatory damages,” Lee is seeking to train school officials and staff about “the harm of segregation, the integration mandate, and the rights to reasonable accommodation,” per the complaint.

Lee’s attorneys told PEOPLE in a statement concerning the lawsuit, “Kennedy’s disability may sometimes limit her ability to physically stand, but nobody will question her standing up to this school system.”

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