Two Connecticut parents are suing a summer sleepaway camp for kicking their daughter out and allegedly humiliating her after she was caught kissing a boy, CBS Local reports.
On July 11, on the eve of her 15th birthday, the teen shared an "innocent" kiss with a boy behind the arts and crafts table, radio station 1010 WINS' Steve Sandberg reported. After finding out about the kiss, the camp director "screamed" at the teens and and "falsely accused them of sexually provocative behavior including the removal of each other's clothing," court papers read. According to the lawsuit, the camp director also called the young girl a "slut" and a "tramp," and told her parents she would have to be removed "for the campers' safety because her acts were dangerous," and her parents are furious.
The teen girl from Westport, Conn. has spent five consecutive years attending Camp Emerson in the Berkshires. "Kissing, that was all that was going on," her father told the radio station in defense of his young daughter. "I'm a conservative, strict, prude father, especially when it comes to my daughters, but a kiss in summer camp isn't something that should result in being booted out of camp."
The lawsuit states that Camp Emerson does not prohibit kissing, noting that male counselors encouraged the girl to kiss the boy. Campers are typically given three strikes in the case of a rule being broken before kicking them out is even considered, and according ot the suit, the teen girl had no previous strikes against her in the past four years at the camp.
The suit also alleges that other campers who kissed each other were not forced to be sent home, and campers have been involved in much more serious offenses such as bringing condoms to camp, calling the nutritionist fat and bullying one another, according to the Daily Mail, but "were never kicked out or reprimanded in any other way." In addition, counselors at the camp have been caught drinking, smoking, and getting high, but were never penalized for their actions.
The four-week session that the teen was kicked out of cost $6,600, a fee that was not refunded to her family. The lawsuit her parents have filed is seeking $600,000 in damages for negligent infliction of emotional distress, defamation and various other claims.
Click here to see photos of Camp Emerson and the "scene of the crime" where the girl was caught kissing a boy.
