Every kid walks into school every day with the right to feel safe and secure, while they are learning and growing up. While most kids take this for granted it is an enormous gift and one that should never be overlooked. For Maureen Bean’s son that was all ripped away while he was attending Trinity Episcopal School, this is a private school in Galveston, Texas.

“Our primary goal is balance, with an emphasis on serving the whole child while offering a rigorous academic curriculum,” Says the prospective parent’s page on the Trinity Episcopal School website.

Imagine walking into school with the uncertainty of your safety because of something as simple and as uncontrollable as your skin town. Bean’s son lived with this for an entire school year. Here he was bullied so severely that according to the Huffington-post Bean’s son’s grade plummeted and has experienced depression and anxiety because of the bullying.

Here’s what happened:

Bean’s son was one of the only black students enrolled in Trinity Episcopal School; he was there for sixth and seventh grade starting in 2014. During this time he was bullied because of his race.

According to the Houston Chronicle, one of the school bullies handed Bean’s son a piece of paper folded to look like the notorious Ku-Klux-Klan hood and told him that his parents were connected to the hate group.

This, however, was not the first incident and Bean had brought the bullying to the school’s attention they had suspended the school bullies for a day and they were made to write an apology note. When Bean heard this she pulled her kid out of school and filed a lawsuit against Trinity Episcopal School in May. The School responded by saying that they could not be sued due to the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine.

“This legal principle, also called the church autonomy doctrine, holds that religious institutions do not need to follow the same laws as non-religious entities, like public schools if it conflicts with their religious doctrine,” explains Huffington Post.

This is usually seen in cases of women not allowed to have the same jobs as men but hardly ever seen in racial cases. The court has yet to rule on this case and is expected to later this month.

“That’s sad,” was all Kaillie Enslinger, 9, could say when she first heard about the case.

Students have a right to walk through the halls without feeling unsafe and here at SHHS, we work very hard to make it and keep it that way. Not all kids are as lucky and as humans, we have to decide where things cross from keeping your right to practice your religion to harming someone’s right to obtain an education. Where is that line? As the next generation of humans, we may not get to make this decision but we will have to live with it.