Former Stone Academy students file federal lawsuit against state

By Cassidy Williams

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    CONNECTICUT (WFSB) — Former Stone Academy students are now suing Connecticut state officials. The lawsuit was filed in federal court on Tuesday December 26th.

The students are also suing Stone Academy and its owners. This new lawsuit seeks to hold state officials accountable for what happened after the school’s closure.

Stone Academy abruptly closed all three campuses in February 2023. The state then conducted an audit of student transcripts.

That audit threw out tens of thousands of credit hours saying the courses taken were invalid.

Students who had already passed the national council licensure exam were also asked to sign an agreement to take a refresher course.

The new lawsuit alleges the state did not have the authority to throw out the credits because Stone was accredited at the time of the classes.

The lawsuit also says the state did not have the authority to withhold nursing licenses due to the refresher course.

The listed defendants are Timothy Larson, Commissioner of the Connecticut Office of Higher Education, Sean Seepersad, Division Director of Academic Affairs, Manisha Juthani, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, and Chris Andersen, Section Chief for Practitioner Licensing and Investigations.

“The bottom line is all the people in positions of trust, who were supposed to be there to help them failed them, so what this new lawsuit does is attempt to deal with the state and its part in that and at the same time we have the other lawsuit to deal with Stone Academy and its part in that,” said attorney David Slossberg.

The lawsuit also alleges the state’s actions damaged students’ reputations.

“This has just left a stigma. It’s essentially defamed or otherwise ruined their reputations because of the way the state dealt with it. We are very comfortable that the state had no authority to do what it did, and in fact I don’t think it’s overstating it to say that these agencies went rogue and certainly the state legislature never intended for them to have this sort of retroactive authority,” said Slossberg.

A representative of the Department of Public Health says the department has no comment. A representative of the Office of Higher Education says that department also has no comment.

The last time Tim Larson agreed to an interview about Stone Academy was in March 2023. During that interview, he told Channel 3 the audit would help students.

“The purpose of our review is really to benefit the students, so that they have an actual transcript, a document that they can use, put in their personal files and transfer credits that may be accepted to other institutions,” said Larson.

Slossberg says he is not aware of any institutions that have accepted a single Stone Academy credit.

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