A Black teen is suing his former charter school in Lakewood over claims that school leaders failed to intervene when he was racially and sexually harassed by white students, including graffiti of a rape threat on a bathroom wall.
Jaylen Davis, now 18, was a 16-year-old sophomore at during the 2024-25 school year when other students bullied and harassed him, including touching him and his hair without his consent, making racial remarks and mocking him with racial stereotypes, his attorneys wrote in a lawsuit filed in federal district court in Denver.
The harassment included students showing him a video with racial slurs and reenacting the video in front of him. One student told Davis he would “return to” a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant when he died, according to the complaint.
The bullying escalated to students writing racist slurs and sexually threatening graffiti on a bathroom wall in May 2025, including the phrases “Rape some (expletive),” “Slave auction” and “Black’s for sale.” Davis’ name and the names of four other male students of color were written beneath the graffiti, attorneys with the Denver firm Murray Law and Maryland firm Clearview Legal wrote in the lawsuit.
Davis and his mother reported the harassment to principal John Byrne and former Executive Director Ric Netzer, but “neither took action to investigate, stop or prevent the harassment from recurring,” the lawsuit said.
Netzer did not respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.
A spokesperson for JeffCo Public Schools on Thursday said the district had not yet been served the lawsuit and that it does not comment on “potential or pending legal matters.” Both Addenbrooke Classical Academy and the school district “strictly” adhere to all federal and state anti-discrimination laws and related district policies, the spokesperson said.
According to the lawsuit, Addenbrooke officials never told Davis or his mother that they had done anything to stop students from harassing him or otherwise protect him. Netzer at one point told Davis to “hit, punch or slug” the students bullying him, Davis’ attorneys wrote.
School leaders never told Davis about the racist graffiti or rape threat — he found out about it after a classmate showed him a photo. When Davis’ mother spoke to Byrne the next day, he told her the school had painted over the graffiti and given “the boys” “some strong words of warning,” but then said school officials didn’t know who wrote the graffiti, according to the complaint.
“Byrne and Netzer consciously acquiesced in the harassment and were deliberately indifferent to it,” the lawsuit claims.
Davis did not return to Addenbrooke because of the harassment and threats and instead spent the following year attending school online because the family did not have a car at the time and no other school “was within reasonable reach.”
The lawsuit alleges Addenbrooke and school leaders violated federal laws against racial harassment, racially and sexually hostile educational environments and race discrimination. Davis is seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages in the case.
