The no-outside-food policy at historic Colonial Williamsburg is so 18th-century, according to a lawsuit claiming an 11-year-old boy with a gluten allergy was forced to eat outdoors in the rain.
The boy, identified in a lawsuit filed in US District Court in Norfolk as “J.D.,” was kicked out of one of the restaurants at the living-history museum in Virginia during a class trip in May because its policy barred outside food, The Virginian-Pilot reports.
“The experience was deeply humiliating,” the lawsuit reads. “Before his exclusion, J.D. was able to participate fully with his peers with confidence. After his exclusion and because of defendant’s callous and discriminatory conduct, J.D. felt less worthy than other children and embarrassed by his disability.”
The boy, a fifth-grader at an unidentified private school, has a condition preventing him from eating gluten “even in trace amounts,” according to the lawsuit. Doctors have not yet determined whether he suffers from celiac disease or non-celiac gluten sensitivity, but ingesting gluten can lead to “precipitous drops in blood pressure,” leading to loss of consciousness.
So the boy’s father, Brian Doherty, who joined the class as a chaperone on the field trip, pulled out food he brought from home when the group went to Shield’s Tavern, where guests get a “glimpse into the cosmopolitan nature of the British Colonies,” according to its website.
That prompted a costumed employee to intervene and tell Doherty that he and his son could not stay at the location if the boy was going to eat the food brought from home, according to the lawsuit.
Doherty, who was told to leave immediately with his son, tried to explain the situation to a manager, but the employees didn’t budge.
“J.D. was crying openly as he was removed from Shields Tavern in front of his peers,” the lawsuit reads.
The manager refused to back down even after a teacher tried to vouch for his condition, according to the lawsuit. During that conversation, Doherty was told that the restaurant only allows toddlers to eat food from outside the tourist attraction, including snacks like goldfish crackers and Lunchables, the lawsuit claims.
“J.D., crying and humiliated, was made to suit outside Shields Tavern in the rain and wait while his classmates learned about colonial life and ate their meals,” according to the lawsuit.
A spokesman for Colonial Williamsburg declined to comment on the lawsuit, The Virginian-Pilot reports.
Doherty’s attorney, meanwhile, blasted the allegations as “despicable.”
“Children with disabilities that require strict adherence to special diets often find themselves on the outside of school parties and social events, but here this child was quite literally removed to the outside in a way that left him feeling humiliated and unworthy,” attorney Mary Vargas told the newspaper. “This is despicable behavior by any adult but especially by an organization that professes to offer educational programming for children.”