A 20-year-old Princeton University sophomore has filed a lawsuit against the university and seven administrators, alleging that the school discriminated against him by forcing him to withdraw from the university following a suicide attempt.
According to the The Daily Princetonian, the student asked to be identified by a pseudonym to “avoid public stigma and emotional distress” in the event that his medical records were released. The anonymous student had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder, type II.
On Feb. 25, 2012, the student attempted suicide by ingesting 20 Trazodone tablets. He then sought assistance from the university’s health center and was taken to a hospital. In the complaint, the student states that following the suicide attempt, he was barred from campus and told that “If he did not ‘voluntarily’ withdraw, he would be involuntarily withdrawn in approximately three weeks for failing to attend the classes from which he had been banned.”
The student also alleges that Princeton was not looking out for his best interests, but instead “sought to protect itself from adverse publicity or liability.” He ultimately withdrew from the university after four weeks of attempting to repeal the school’s decision and returned a year later.
He states in the complaint that he will always have “an awkward, one-year gap” and that he “will always be a year behind his friends in classes, housing placements, and entering the workforce.”