Former McDonogh teacher, Living Classrooms founder accused of abuse in lawsuit

A former student at McDonogh School alleges in a new lawsuit that a faculty member sexually abused her, which she says she reported to the school nearly 40 years ago.

The woman filed the lawsuit on Friday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore against the school and G. Dennis O’Brien.

According to the lawsuit, O’Brien, who helped found Living Classrooms in 1985, began by making sexual comments and engaging in inappropriate conduct before his behavior escalated to physical abuse. It happened over the course of years, she claims, on school property and during extracurricular activities such as Lady Maryland, a learning project that was a precursor to Living Classrooms.

The lawsuit alleges O’Brien committed battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, while the complaint accuses the school of being negligent.

When told about the lawsuit by a reporter, O’Brien, who now lives in Sarasota, Florida, said, “Holy cow. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’ve been gone from McDonogh a long time, and I don’t know anything about this stuff,” O’Brien said. “There’s nothing to it with me. I was married and had kids then.”

McDonogh tried to contact him several years ago, O’Brien said, but his attorney friend advised him against responding.

The lawsuit alleges that the school has known about the allegations, claiming administrators assured the woman that O’Brien “would not work with children anymore.”

Thirty years later, the school hired outside investigators to look into sexual abuse claims. They determined in 2019 that three faculty members engaged in sexual misconduct with five students — but the investigative report did not name them.

The lawsuit alleges that O’Brien is one of those unnamed teachers.

Brooke Blumberg, McDonogh’s chief marketing and communications officer, said the school was aware of the lawsuit but declined to address the claims that it had prior knowledge of the abuse allegations against O’Brien.

“McDonogh remains committed to fostering a community where students and adults feel empowered to identify and report sexual abuse,” Blumberg said in a statement. “We take all allegations very seriously and remain steadfast in our support for survivors while complying with applicable laws. As this is an ongoing legal matter, we cannot comment any further.”

The nondenominational coed college preparatory school in Owings Mills educates students from prekindergarten through 12th grade, according to its website.

The woman attended McDonogh for more than a decade starting in the mid-1970s, according to the lawsuit.

Ari Casper, an attorney for the former student, wrote in the lawsuit that the conduct “did not take place in a vacuum.”

In a statement issued Monday, Casper said: “We represent multiple individuals who were abused at McDonogh School, and what has emerged is a pattern of abuse that was not limited by gender.

“These cases highlight broader institutional failures that allowed misconduct to persist, and offer survivors an opportunity to hold McDonogh accountable and pursue justice,” he added.

The school was aware that teachers were sexually abusing students, the lawsuit claims, but covered up the behavior and allowed it to continue.

After O’Brien left the school, the woman told administrators in 1987 about the alleged abuse, according to the lawsuit. But he continued to work with children on the Lady Maryland.

In 2016, the school sent a letter that discussed the previous sexual abuse prosecutions of two former teachers, Robert Creed and Alvin Levy, and stated that it had hired an outside firm to conduct an investigation.

The report of that investigation concluded that “some of these allegations were reported to the School at the time, and it is now clear from the completed investigation that then-active School Administration officials and members of the Board of Trustees failed to take appropriate action when these allegations were first reported more than three decades ago.”

O’Brien is listed as an emeritus member of Living Classrooms’ Board of Trustees. James Piper Bond, the president and CEO of the Living Classrooms Foundation, said he had “no knowledge of any abuse, allegation or lawsuit involving Dennis O’Brien.”