Teen expelled from private school for anorexia

26th November 2008

Teen expelled from private school for anorexia

posted in Eating Disorders |

Last year the University of Northern Colorado suspended student Brittany Bethel and placed her on the university’s persona non grata list of individuals banned from campus. What did the star swimmer do to warrant such disciplinary action? Bethel suffers from anorexia and according to the university, violated the school’s honor code of “by being a danger to myself.”

Now another teen has been suspended from her New Hampshire private school on similar grounds. Debra Franchi filed a lawsuit against the New Hampton School on behalf of her 15-year-old daughter, who is not named, alleging violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. For the purposes of this post, let’s call the girl Jane. Jane suffers from anorexia and is currently in treatment for it — she had recently spent several weeks in inpatient and outpatient treatment. According to the suit, Jane’s parents advised the school of her daughter’s condition upon enrollment and they reassured Jane’s parents that the school had adequate counseling services available and understood her condition. Jane also saw a nutritionist and therapist and was weighed often. Her mother and her attorneys say that at 5-foot-7 and 114.5 pounds, Jane was thin, for sure, but represented no danger to herself.

The Concord Monitor reports:

The lawsuit raises legal questions about eating disorders, which have gained increased visibility in recent years, and whether those disorders are covered under current federal anti-discrimination laws, attorneys said yesterday. Congress has passed a revised, broadened version of the ADA that explicitly includes eating disorders, among other additions, but that doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1.

The suit charges the school on a dozen counts, ranging from violation of the ADA and federal Rehabilitation Act to Title IX and negligence. The school’s motion to dismiss, which [Andrew] Serell (attorney representing the school) filed last week, rebuts a number of those counts, including the ADA claim, because the school isn’t a “public entity” and eating disorders don’t constitute “disabilities” under the ADA.

A private school that receives some federal funding is a public entity under the Rehabilitation Act, not the ADA, said Jeanne Kincaid, a Portsmouth attorney who represents schools and universities and deals solely in disability cases. Still, a private school would be considered a “public accommodation,” she said, which means it does qualify under the ADA.

According to Kincaid, the girl’s case must meet three criteria to fall under the ADA: Whether she had an impairment, whether that impairment affected a “major life activity” and whether the impact was substantial. Anyone who has suffered from an eating disorder or cared for someone who has knows that all three deserve a big check-plus, but Kincaid thinks it will be difficult for the plaintiffs to prove the latter. The school’s motion to dismiss argues that the ADA doesn’t define an eating disorder as a disability, because it doesn’t “substantially limit” major life activities.

Unless a client is extremely disabled, Kincaid said, “it’s hard to prove you’re qualified. The more I make it negative, the more I pile on about how ill you are, the more the other side argues, ‘Well, you’re not otherwise qualified to be here.’ It’s a delicate avenue.”

The lawsuit arises more from the fact that Jane’s mother paid some $49,000 in tuition for her daughter’s freshman year and the school refused to prorate a refund, even though they expelled Jane mid-year. Her attorneys say that she is doing well in her recovery.

I can certainly understand if the school felt as if they did not have the resources or personnel to treat Jane’s disorder. The school is also a boarding school and assumes the majority of responsibility for ensuring the daily well being of its students and anorexia is a serious mental illness that often requires intense treatment. Still, the appropriate response is not to exercise disciplinary action and expel a student who is already psychologically unstable and who is in active recovery to treat a medical condition! At the pinnacle of my eating disorder, I was carrying a 15-18-credit hour course load. School was my saving grace – if I didn’t have the structure and support of my studies to rely upon and motivate me just to get up each day, I might be just another eating disorder suicide statistic. In fact, it was my education and the accompanying encouragement to self-examine both the world and myself that factored greatly into my own recovery.

Would the school expel a student undergoing chemotherapy to treat cancer or lymphoma? Are New Hampton students suffering from depression or who are obese up for expulsion, also? Eating disorders are a certifiable mental illness and in some anorexia cases, represent a disease of the brain. It’s time that they receive the same respect that any other medical condition would receive.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 11:02 am and is filed under Eating Disorders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

1 On November 26th, 2008, Carrie said:

Absolutely EDs should be treated the same as any other illness- because they are!

The Colorado case is different, IMO, because Ms. Bethel was essentially a danger to herself. Letting her stay in school would be colluding with the disorder. I think it would be irresponsible for an institution to say that a person can continue to attend classes when they need to be in treatment. Here, it doesn’t appear to be the case. If Jane’s continued attendance at school was enabling her disorder (ie, she was still skipping meals, losing weight) and the school’s resources weren’t adequate to help her, then I believe sending her home would be the right thing to do.

But just because she was diagnosed as anorexic? Hardly.

posted on November 26th, 2008 at 12:26 pm

2 On November 26th, 2008, Cammy said:

This is sad. I agree that it puts a school in a hard position to have to watch a student self-destruct, but if she was in recovery, why punish her for her past? It was a huge personal accomplishment for her to overcome the worst of her anorexia and become healthy enough to return to school, only to be booted out again because of the administration’s ultra-paranoia over liability. It definitely makes the school seem more like a business than a place of education, an issue that is a huge debate in itself, and only tangential to this.

Also, like you said, at the very height of my eating disorder I was carrying massive loads of classes, leadership roles, etc, and managed to hold onto A’s in everything, get a perfect 800 verbal on the SAT, etc etc…the worst years of my ED were in high school, but even now, in college, my ED tendencies flare up much more when classes are not in session, school and organizations help give me incentive to take care of myself. I can’t imagine how invalidating it feels to put forth so much effort in recovery, only to have it negated by having educational and professional doors slammed in your face.

posted on November 26th, 2008 at 12:41 pm

3 On November 26th, 2008, Angelique said:

This is such a tough situation, isn’t it? On one hand, I agree with the parents and their frustrations; on the other, I can see where the schools are coming from. With families litigating left and right, the schools may have figured that they’d rather risk a lawsuit now than risk one if the anorexic girls died under their charge.

That being said, it must be humiliating for these poor teens to be treated as if they are subhuman because they suffer from an eating disorder. It’s not as if they chose to become anorexic (at least, I doubt they did), and they seem to want to recover.

It’ll be interesting to see where all this goes. Thanks so much for bringing it to our attention!

posted on November 26th, 2008 at 1:24 pm

4 On November 26th, 2008, JupiterPluvius said:

I think that someone who is in treatment, in relatively stable health, and who is not endangering their life or health by remaining at school should be encouraged to continue at school. Taking a source of continuity away from someone who is dealing with a serious illness is cruel.

That said, I have known of people who were asked to leave a school or university because they were in denial about the seriousness of a physical or mental illness and putting themselves and potentially others at risk. It is possible that the school authorities perceived this as what was happening here, and that the student and her parent saw it differently. The burden is still on the school to work this out through negotiation/mediation rather than unilateral decision.

Finally, I can imagine a context in which a boarding school had had issues with active anorexics who were operating from a pro-anorexia position and supporting/exacerbating each others’ disordered eating styles. If that had been an experience of the school’s administration, they might have been tempted to overreact in the case of anorexic students who were in treatment. Still, that would not excuse what seem–on the face of the facts we know–to be arbitrary and inappropriate actions.

Bottom line, I agree that the school’s actions sound inappropriate in this case. But especially for boarding schools, it’s a complicated set of issues–and should be handled sensitively and with respect for the students and their families.

posted on November 26th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

5 On November 26th, 2008, Rachel2 said:

What Jupiter said.

From the information given, it seems that the school is grossly misinformed about eating disorders and is acting out of paranoia rather than genuine concern for the student.

From my own standpoint, although I’ve never been officially diagnosed as having an eating disorder, the tendencies have been there – very wickedly at points. I would qualify under the EDNOS category, and fortunately, nothing was ever severe enough to do any lasting damage – something that I am incredibly thankful for. That being said, I do have other mental disabilities and instabilities that my school was wonderful with. My University is generally wonderful about “getting the word out” on mental health, and especially about EDs. They’ve got inpatient care, daily care, etc and are very, very on top of things, ED or otherwise. My problems were beyond the general scope of care for Student Health, but I am extremely lucky that my county allocates a lot of funding for mental health. I am able to have my doctor’s appointments, counseling, and meds for free.

And all of THAT being said, I still couldn’t imagine being expelled because I’ve got OCD or something similar (ED, ADD, BPII,…etc) I would collapse and probably be far worse off without school than with school. It is when I am not occupied 105% of the time is when I run into trouble. My mind wanders into the realm of ED, and thus begets a slippery slope that I have traveled before. I thank my own ingenuity and ability to recognize rationally: “WARNING! THIS IS *NOT* A GOOD IDEA! I REPEAT!! WARNING: THIS IS *NOT* A GOOD IDEA!!” I know that there are millions out there not so lucky, and my heart goes out to them. It is a very irrational disease and will rob a person of their rationality in a very short period of time. Fortunately, I had other things going for me to keep me out of it.

I think that the school’s actions were incredibly crass and off-base. If they did not have adequate resources to care for this student via daily/weekly checkups, etc, then I can see this. But the way it sounds, she was expelled simply because of anorexia. That’s being paranoid and discriminating. “Normal” folk are afraid of this disease, and this is a clear example of this fear being exploited at the expense of this poor student.

It is often said that those who are very bright and intelligent are deficient in other areas of their brains to balance these things out. It can come in the form of anorexia, ADD, OCD, etc. It is really too bad that this school cannot see beyond this “quirk” of hers to realize her true value.

posted on November 26th, 2008 at 2:20 pm

6 On November 26th, 2008, Twistie said:

Wait a minute. The school accepted her as a student. The family made the school aware of her ED upon enrollment. They apparently discussed the matter with the parents and everyone agreed the school had the means to handle the situation. The girl was in recovery and in treatment for her condition. She had reached a weight that – while still surprisingly light for her height – was no longer actively dangerous for her.

Unless there was a serious incident that went unreported in this story, I can see no reason for the school to suddenly expell the girl. I would also think if there had been an incident sufficient to warrent this response it would be in the school’s best interest to at least mention that there was a cause beyond the simple fact that ‘Jane’ has an eating disorder.

So far as I can see, the school has behaved irresponsibly. Either they accepted the girl as a student and then discovered they didn’t have the means to handle her needs – something they had already assured the parents they had – to recover from her ED, or they are engaging in discriminatory actions against someone with a serious psychological condition. I don’t have an eating disorder. I don’t personally know anyone with an eating disorder (to the best of my knowledge), but even without insider knowledge or a great deal of research I can guess that taking away something positive and constructive from a recovering and functioning anorexic could be catastrophic.

Unless the school can prove that ‘Jane’ has been giving courses in anorexic behavior to other students or otherwise causing harm to herself or someone else or has been caught in some academic breach, the school has is in the wrong.

If they could not meet the needs of a recovering anorexic student, they should never have accepted her knowing her condition. That’s the bottom line.

posted on November 26th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

7 On November 26th, 2008, Piffle said:

Ridiculous, they wouldn’t expell a student for being treated for depression, at least I hope they wouldn’t! I could see expelling her if she needed more treatment than they could give, but that’s not what seems to be going on here. And they should most definitely give the refund, they were warned upfront and said they could deal with the anorexia, so they can’t say they were dealing with something unexpected. I think the girl should get her money back and find a better place to be.

posted on November 26th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

8 On November 26th, 2008, Virginia said:

This is ridiculous. Yeah she’s thin but she’s not on her death bed. I went to school at 5 foot 7 and 110 lbs for a while and I was alright, just unhappy and spending 1 – 2 hours with specialiss on some kind each week.

Hmmmm….. and people wonder why we say they wouldn’t understand.

posted on November 26th, 2008 at 4:55 pm

9 On November 26th, 2008, Amy said:

I think it is very easy to say that the school should never have accepted the girl in the firs place. But I would hate for that precedent to be set. It would be awful if no one with an eating disorder could attend this or any other school for fear that the campus personnel could not handle the case. If the school realized with this girl that they were in over their heads and could not keep the child safe and healthy then the girl cannot be left in their care.

The linked article stated that the girl had been on a leave from the school from Thanksgiving through Christmas and was in in-patient therapy during that time. She would have returned to the school in January after the holiday break. What is not known from the article is what the school or parent learned from the in-patient treatment. Was what the girl needed then too intense for the school to provide? It certainly seems to me that this could be the case. I have no idea what went on between the school and the parent or what the girl weighed before the in-patient treatment. But the school cannot be expected to provide the same level of care that she received during her in-patient treatment.

O/T But WOW $49,000 for high school. As a mom trying each month to save for her 4 and 7 year-olds college educations I am blown away by the amount of money these schools cost.

posted on November 26th, 2008 at 5:21 pm

10 On November 27th, 2008, Bronwyn said:

I pretty much agree with you that something did, of course, need to be done; however, expelling the student was NOT what needed to be done; disciplining someone for a disorder like this, something that isn’t exactly completely voluntary no matter what anyone else thought, is a huge mistake.

If the school could not provide the proper help with the disorder, they needed to say that; not expel the student! Disciplinary action over a disorder.. not cool in my mind.

posted on November 27th, 2008 at 2:22 am

11 On November 30th, 2008, carolz said:

what on eath why would you suspend someone for being anorexic especially if they are seeing a specialist, im 5 foot 7, 15 years old and 97 pounds but im not anorexic and am at school plus if i was which im not anorexic and also go to a private school they wouldnt suspend me. it jus sounds so stupid if anything it makes the disorder even worse because she probably may feel she cant fit in so she might as well carry on. i guess the school may feel responsible but if it got too bad then she would become an inpatient at a hospital anyway

posted on November 30th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

12 On November 30th, 2008, carnival of eating disorders, november 2008 edition said:

[...] girl expelled from school all is not well, though. the F-word discusses the case of a girl who was expelled from school because of her anorexia. i know nothing about the particular circumstances of this case but two things that the post [...]

posted on November 30th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

13 On December 1st, 2008, Alex said:

Okay, her weight is largely irrelevant. While 114 pounds is not “that” underweight, it might be very underweight for her. Even at a “normal” weight, she could still be very symptomatic. A few weeks in treatment is really not much at all, and since her school is a boarding school, they really can’t risk having someone who’s in a precarious state of recovery in attendance. How is she receiving continued outpatient care if she lives at school? Should she be living at school if she’s so new in her recovery?

I don’t believe expulsion is the answer, but I do believe that mandating sufficient recovery time, perhaps attending classes while living at home, before returning to live at school is not out of line. No one on this board knows how sick this young girl is, whether her sickness is affecting her academic performance, etc.

I don’t believe she could be in a stable enough place after four weeks of treatment to live away from home at age 15 and function properly in a rigorous academic setting. This doesn’t benefit the institution, but most importantly, it doesn’t benefit her. I’m not saying she needs to take a huge chunk of time off of school altogether. I guess what gets me is that it’s a boarding school, and part of recovery (especially when you’re a minor living with your family) is utilizing your familial resources to help you.

It really gets me that the school wouldn’t give her a second chance. While I don’t believe eating disorders are exactly equivalent to cancer–in terms of severity, most definitely, but there is no love/hate relationship with cancer–I believe they should be treated as an illness like any other. Washing your hands of an anorexic student is no way to encourage recovery, nor is it in any way humane.

posted on December 1st, 2008 at 2:44 am

14 On December 1st, 2008, Rachel said:

Alex: The school is largely a boarding school, but not all of its students live on-campus. The news article doesn’t mention whether or not Jane lives on- or off-campus.

I understand if the school felt it was incapable of dealing with her illness or her recovery, although I remain puzzled why they would accept her in the first place. What I object to is the use of a disciplinary measure in dealing with this girl and her illness. In a sense, it only criminalizes the disorder.

posted on December 1st, 2008 at 9:08 am

15 On December 1st, 2008, Michele said:

I actually know Brittany Bethel… I was in treatment with her a few years ago. Her case is a bit different than this girl’s case. While I don’t agree with the university’s choice to put her on the school’s website, I do know that there is a lot more going on than just “she won’t eat, so let’s expel her.”

posted on December 1st, 2008 at 4:44 pm