Article content continued

At the University of B.C. hospital emergency department, the girl was given a drug to revive her and at first it was thought she had fentanyl in her system, says a lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court.

“Upon looking at her arms, it was discovered that (the girl) had been cutting herself.”

What preceded the overdose was, the lawsuit alleges, more than a year of the girl being the target of homophobia, racism, harassment and bullying.

In September 2017, when she was 11, the girl was enrolled in Grade 6 at Crofton House.

“She was a bright and happy girl and a near straight A student,” says the lawsuit, which said the girl won literature competitions, was a ballerina and found joy in dancing, reading and singing.

Photo by Mike Bell / PNG

But during the school year, it alleges, another student began making disparaging remarks about the girl’s race, suggesting that she would be much better looking if she were “full white” and if “your mother had married a white guy.”

The girl was told by the other student to get plastic surgery to look more white, with the girl coming home daily to ask her mother, ‘If I do this, would I look more white?’ says the lawsuit.

“This marked the commencement of the verbal and psychological abuse of (the girl) at Crofton House. The staff at Crofton House did nothing to curtail the Crofton student’s racist disparagements that were occurring regularly on school grounds.”