Lakewood Student Sues Charter School Over Racial Harassment

“Slave auction.” Two words. Scrawled in a school bathroom wall, they cost one Black teenager his sense of safety and triggered a federal lawsuit against the Lakewood charter school that was supposed to protect him.

Jaylen Davis, now 18, filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Denver on Wednesday. He is suing Addenbrooke Classical Academy, Principal John Byrne, and former executive director Ric Netzer. The core allegation is simple: the school knew. They did nothing.

Davis was a sophomore during the 2024-25 school year when the harassment began. It wasn’t a single incident; it was a pattern. White classmates touched his hair without consent, used racial slurs, and leaned on stereotypes that should have made an administrator wince. One student handed him a stress ball shaped like a monkey. Another told Davis he’d “return to” KFC when he died. A group of students showed him a video of a character in a Burger King hat yelling a slur, then wore the hats to class and acted it out.

Davis’s mother notified Principal Byrne at the end of January 2025 that Davis was becoming a target. Between January and April, both Davis and his mom complained multiple times to Byrne and Netzer as the harassment escalated. They asked for intervention. They asked for discipline.

On paper, that’s what a school is for. In practice, the lawsuit alleges neither leader investigated the incidents, interviewed the students involved, or took steps to protect Davis.

The most damning detail isn’t the graffiti. It’s what Netzer told Davis when he was being bullied. According to the lawsuit, Netzer advised him to “hit, punch or slug” the students harassing him.

Steven Murray, an attorney with Murray Law, LLC in Denver who is representing Davis, put the school’s inaction into perspective for The Colorado Sun. “What do you think would have happened if Jaylen would have hit the white students?” Murray asked.

Murray argues that by failing to punish the perpetrators, the school leaders chose to protect themselves and the white students. “The only person that was harmed by this entire ordeal was Jaylen,” Murray told the paper. “The school wasn’t. The administrators weren’t. The white kids weren’t.”

The harassment culminated in May 2025. Racist phrases, including threats of sexual violence against Davis and four other male students of color, were written on a wall in the boys’ bathroom. The graffiti also suggested a “slave auction” during lunch period.

Addenbrooke Classical Academy is a charter school authorized by Jeffco Public Schools’ board, educating kids from preschool through high school on two campuses. It sits in Lakewood, a city that has spent the last decade trying to market itself as a progressive hub for tech and creative industries. A federal lawsuit alleging systemic racial harassment in its own backyard complicates that narrative.

For local taxpayers and parents, the stakes are logistical and financial. Charter schools rely on public funding for per-pupil spending, but they operate with significant autonomy from the district that authorizes them. When a charter school fails to protect its students, the financial burden of litigation falls on the institution and its leadership. Davis is seeking damages for the emotional distress he endured, but the real cost is the erosion of trust in a public-authorized educational institution.

The lawsuit doesn’t just ask for money; it asks for accountability from the adults who were paid to watch over these kids. Davis is 18 now, but he was a child when the graffiti went up. He didn’t have to punch anyone. He just had to go to school.

The practical bottom line is that Addenbrooke Classical Academy and its leaders are now in federal court, defending their record. For the families of Black students on the Western Slope and in metro Denver, this case is a reminder that "charter" doesn’t always mean "safe." It means the adults in charge made a choice, and now they’re paying for it.