A teenager who was recently pulled out of school in the U.S. says he was teased by two of his teachers for being Canadian.
Noah Kilpatrick, 15, was born in Ottawa, but moved to Watertown, N.Y. with his family nine years ago. He says the bullying started last fall and went on for months.
“They’d say things like ‘Canada’s full of communists. They club baby seals. That my opinion doesn’t really matter because I’m a Canadian,’” Noah Kilpatrick told the CBC.
Eventually his fellow students at Faith Fellowship Christian School joined in on the bullying.
Noah’s mother, Tina Kilpatrick, decided to speak to one of the school’s officials, telling him that she believed Noah had become depressed as a result of how he was being treated. When Noah returned to school the next day, he felt the teachers were ignoring him, “instead of righting a wrong,” Kilpatrick said.
She decided to pull her son out of the school in mid-May, and went public with his story on local TV. Since then, the backlash in the small town of 30,000 residents has been intense, she says.
“It’s become quite aggressive. I’ve never felt so ostracized or intimidated.”
The family is now thinking of leaving Watertown altogether and moving back to Canada.
With files from the CBC.