This story breaks my heart! Let us be in prayer for the students. A Connecticut couple alleges in a federal lawsuit that their three daughters were “indoctrinated” into a cult by public high school staff and suffered severe personality changes, including becoming “flat and distant.”
The parents, known only as Jane and John Doe in court documents, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Monday against three current and former Spanish teachers and a guidance counselor at Avon High School, the Avon school system and Wellesley College in Massachusetts, which two of their daughters now attend.
Officials with the school district in Avon, a wealthy Hartford suburb, did not comment on the allegations but said in a statement that they hadn’t heard any similar complaints in the past.
The parents allege deprivation of civil rights and constitutional violations including failure to separate church and state, among other claims. Their daughters, ages 22, 19 and 16, also aren’t named.
One of the parent’s lawyers, Paul Grosswald, of Summit, New Jersey, declined to comment Friday, saying “the family has decided not to pursue any publicity at this time.”
“All three girls experienced sudden and severe personality changes,” the lawsuit says. “They became flat and distant, reclusive, secretive, and non-communicative. They lost their humor and their empathy.”
The couple says their two older daughters were “indoctrinated into a religious cult that promotes martyrdom and celebrates death,” and that has caused them to experience “fantasies of suicide ideation and martyrdom.” They didn’t name the cult.
The lawsuit says one teacher “taught her students to believe in superstition, magic, and a non-scientific, anti-intellectual worldview. She would discuss spirituality, numerology, astrology, dreams, mysticism, looking for ‘signs,’ angels, symbols, ‘synchronicity,’ ‘negativity,’ ‘seeking the truth,’ and death.”
A spokeswoman for Wellesley declined to comment Friday.
