A Brandeis University student is suing his old Upper West Side prep school and ex-classmate for $1.5 million over an alleged 2004 bullying incident. According to the Post, "Eric Giray, now 19, claims classmate Daniel Dworakowski bullied him relentlessly at the elite Calhoun School and pushed him down the bleachers in 2004, when they were both 12, according to a filing in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday." Giray apparently suffered "serious bodily injuries" (like a broken nose, needing 18 stitches to close up wounds) and "emotional and physical distress," leading his lawyer to say, "To this day, he doesn’t sleep well and has problems with anxiety."
Giray's lawsuit contends that the incident occured "two weeks after Giray’s mother, Dr. Ayse Giray, a pediatrician, complained in two emails to school administrators that Dworakowski, a champion athlete, had repeatedly called her smaller son 'gay' and told him he had 'elephant ears,'" the Daily News reports. His mother had emailed the school, "I really don’t want him to be bullied again." Giray later left Calhoun to attend public school.
Dworakowski, now a sophomore at Cornell, told the Post he was "blindsided" by the lawsuit, deeming it "frivolous... It was all innocent kid stuff," and a teacher even called the bleacher incident an accident. Dworakowski, who also left Calhoun and attended Bronx Science (and loves Quidditch) said that he and Giray had been friends, but Giray was very sensitive.
