An Elite School, a Boy’s Suicide and a Question of Blame

The questions were particularly acute during the pandemic, when young people were already dealing with severe emotional disruptions. Suspected suicide attempts among adolescents Ellis’s age were up 49 percent in 2021 compared with prepandemic levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mr. Gural demanded that Mr. Tompkins explain to the community how, “in the middle of all this talk of D.E.I., three professionals got together and decided that their institution has no place for a bright, creative, caring gay child because he has learning differences.”

When the school informed parents that a student had died by suicide, without also telling them that the student had recently been asked to leave the school, Mr. Gural was incensed.

“I was apoplectic,” he said. “Because it did not contextualize in any way what the issues were in my son’s suicide. And it says the school is being proactive to deal with this mental health crisis. Here they are, presenting information about my son’s death in the most flattering way possible. Totally dishonest.”

Jeffrey Gural, Ellis’s grandfather, also pressed the school’s board of trustees. The elder Mr. Gural is chairman of GFP Real Estate L.L.C. (formerly Newmark Holdings and Newmark Knight Frank), a major developer with an ownership stake in more than 50 buildings, including the iconic Flatiron Building. On a Zoom call with members of the board after Ellis’s death, he demanded that Mr. Tompkins resign and that the school inform other schools that one of its students had killed himself after being denied a seat in ninth grade.

“I can’t bring Ellis back, but I just want to do whatever I can to make sure that no family has to go through this again,” he said in an interview. After that call, he tried writing to the board but got no answers, he said.

“Literally, I got one response saying, ‘Don’t email the board anymore,’” he said. “From their lawyer. Oh, really? My grandson’s dead. Are you threatening me? What are you going to do to me? What else can Saint Ann’s do to me?”