HACKETTSTOWN -- A Hackettstown High School student who claims to have been verbally harassed by high-ranking school officials has filed a legal complaint of discrimination and bias against the district and several of its employees.

HACKETTSTOWN -- A Hackettstown High School student who claims to have been verbally harassed by high-ranking school officials has filed a legal complaint of discrimination and bias against the district and several of its employees.

"This type of thing should not happen in a school," the student, identified only by her initials due to her age, said during an interview with the New Jersey Herald. "There were things said to me that would not be appropriate in any situation, but especially not in a place where students are supposed to be safe and protected."

The girl, who says she has not returned to school since May 2017 because of the "hostile environment" referenced in the complaint, is described in the document as an openly gay, biracial student in her senior year of high school.

She is currently being home schooled.

The complaint, filed with the U.S. District Court of New Jersey on Feb. 20, names the high school principal, Kevin O'Leary; the student assistance counselor, Jennifer Spuckes; English teacher Kathleen Matlack; and the district as a whole as defendants.

The document points to two incidents that allegedly occurred during the 2016-2017 school year as examples of discrimination and hostility against the 17-year-old student.

The first event, according to her attorney, John Rue, occurred on March 8, 2017, when the girl and several other students were sent to O'Leary's office following a conversation held in Matlack's class about violence, guns and school shootings.

"Mr. O'Leary sat me down and asked me if the conversation had made me feel uncomfortable," she said. "I told him I thought it was important that students be able to talk about things like this, but that I didn't feel unsafe."

In the course of their initial conversation, she said, she and O'Leary began to discuss the Black Lives Matter movement.

"He kept saying, �All lives matter,' which felt like a strange thing to say," she said. "He also said that I must know a lot about the movement since I'm biracial, and made a comment about how some people are lucky enough to have light enough skin to �pass.' I'm pretty light-skinned, especially in the winter, so it felt very personal and intentional. It was odd, but I didn't think much of it."

Less than a week later, on March 13, she said she was called back into O'Leary's office to discuss a comment that she allegedly made during another session of the same English class.

"The student referred to a fictional, corrupt police officer as a �pig' during a discussion about a play," Rue said. "She later clarified that she was not talking about police officers in general, but rather about that one character. Another student in the class has a parent who is a police officer, and the teacher felt that the comment could have been viewed as offensive."

In response, Rue said, the school launched a Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying (HIB) investigation into the incident and asked her to speak with O'Leary and Spuckes, the school's anti-bullying coordinator.

Throughout the course of that conversation, the complaint alleges, the two school employees attempted to explain to the student why her comment was offensive by comparing what she had said to other instances of hate speech.

O'Leary asked her how she would feel if someone used a specific racial slur to describe her.

Spuckes, the complaint continues, allegedly used a similar analogy that involved a derogatory word used to describe members of the gay community.

"These school officials are supposed to protect their students against bullying, not perpetuate it," Rue said. "Regardless of the rationale behind it, their behavior was inexcusable."

On the advice of her mother, Rue said, the student used her cell phone to record the conversation.

"The student's mother was very concerned about the comments that had been made during the first meeting, so she asked to be included in the second conversation," Rue said. "When the school told her that would not be possible, she told her daughter to record what was said."

Though O'Leary and Spuckes were not aware that the conversation was being recorded, Rue said that New Jersey's one-party consent law meant that the student's recording would be admissible.

The student received a one-day suspension for her comment about the police officer, and was advised, she said, to stop talking about inflammatory topics like Black Lives Matter in school.

"I never meant to offend anyone," she said. "Mr. O'Leary kept trying to get me to admit to bullying someone, I really don't think I did anything wrong. They didn't need to make me feel so uncomfortable about all of it."

The complaint indicated that the student will seek a trial by jury and compensation as well as a reversal of the HIB report that was filed against her.

Hackettstown Superintendent David Mango said that district policy prohibits comment on pending litigation.