ONE of the most exclusive US boarding schools has been rocked by allegations of schoolgirl mayhem that make St Trinian's sound like a convent.

At Miss Porter's School for Girls, where Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and George W.Bush's grandmothers were pupils, one clique of senior girls was named after a 16th-century Russian torture squad.

The girls, who called themselves "Oprichniki" - after the death squads set up by Ivan the Terrible - are accused in a lawsuit of orchestrating months of bullying that led to the expulsion of Tatum Bass, a senior girl at the Connecticut school.

A civil suit filed by Tatum and her parents paints an alarming picture of life in the elite school founded in 1843 by Sarah Porter, daughter of a church minister and sister of the president of nearby Yale University.

The school quickly became a haven for the daughters of the US aristocracy. Its 6000 alumnae include Gloria Vanderbilt, Laura Rockefeller, Lilly Pulitzer and several members of the Bouvier and Bush families.

The girls' parents pay fees of up to $US42,000 ($60,000) a year for an eclectic curriculum that includes art history, Chinese literature, skiing and "ultimate frisbee".

Yet according to Tatum's lawsuit, teachers failed to halt a pattern of taunts and threats despite repeated pleas from her father, Bill, who is the head of an insurance agency, and her mother, Nina, a psychiatrist.

"This is a hard-working kid. I hate to see this happen to her," said Bill Bass. "We kept trying to make things right with the school."

The lawsuit claims Tatum was a popular student who had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. In her final year at the school, she became director of social activities.

Trouble seems to have started when she proposed holding the senior prom - the end-of-year dance - in conjunction with other schools nearby. A row about the prom made her a target of the Oprichniki girls.

The lawsuit claims that the Oprichniki members began taunting Tatum about her disorder, which had not been revealed to other students. She was called "retarded" and "stupid" and was humiliated in front of hundreds of pupils at a school dance.

The Oprichniki allegedly taunted Bass on Facebook and sent her bullying text messages.

The lawsuit says the pressure became so great that Tatum was driven to cheat in an art history test, then was overcome by remorse and confessed.

The exact circumstances of her expulsion remain unclear, but her parents claim that when they went to Tatum's room to collect her belongings, her clothes had been tossed in a corner and a "for rent" sign hung on her bed.

Headmistress Katherine Windsor said the claims would be "defended vigorously".

The Sunday Times

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