On a late Friday afternoon in October 2011, a former student at Rachel Carson Middle School, “Kate,” testified that she was cutting through a corner park in her neighborhood of Middleton Farm in Herndon when she ran into a classmate and friend, J.O., or “Janet,” and her friend’s boyfriend, C.K, or “Chris.”
After pleasantries, including selfies, Kate recalled, she turned to go home when Janet suddenly pushed her to the ground from behind, pouncing on her, sitting on her hips, and pinning her arms down while laughing at her with her boyfriend, standing overhead. pulled the young girl’s shirt and sports bra up and photographed her breasts, still laughing with her boyfriend. Kate testified that Janet then pulled down the young seventh grader’s pants and inserted a finger into Kate’s vagin*, while Chris pulled down his sweatpants and pushed his penis into Kate’s mouth.
Kate said she complained to school officials that she was bullied in school afterward by students who called her a “slu*t,” “whor*,” and “lesbian,” but they didn’t protect her rights to a safe school learning environment, in violation of federal law. This past Monday, on day 15 of a trial about whether Fairfax County Public Schools failed to protect Kate, her former friend, Janet, stepped into the witness box in Courtroom 1000 of the federal court building in Alexandria and denied the alleged sexual assault occurred. Kate has named Janet as a defendant in the case, too.
Janet testified Kate’s allegations were “false.”
During her testimony, Janet walked through alleged Facebook messages with her former boyfriend, Chris, to paint a portrait of Kate as a jealous and unstable friend.
In one message, Chris allegedly wrote to Janet about Kate, saying, “She is such a whor*. Do you want to hang out tomorrow?”
Kate has produced medical experts who said that she was a “happy” and balanced girl when she entered seventh grade, leaving Rachel Carson months later, struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and an eating disorder.
Janet said that Kate was not bullied at school, but an attorney for Kate, Andrew Brenner, asked her about a message she sent to a friend about Kate’s and her experience at Rachel Carson, stating, “We both got hella bullied.”
Brenner read from her deposition, taken last year, when she said that even she was “hella bullied” and was asked, “You would agree that” Kate “was bullied in middle school?”
Her response then was, “Yeah.”
Now, when asked about whether Kate was bullied, Janet responded, “I don’t recall.”
Brenner showed Janet a photo of herself with a skinned knee, posted on Oct. 21, 2011, allegedly from the day of the alleged attack in the neighborhood park in Herndon.
Janet said she skinned her knee crossing “a stream” at another park.
Later, when an assistant principal, Sybil Terry, nicknamed “Scary Terry, the Dress Code Fairy,” alleged that Chris had left a sexually aggressive voicemail on Kate’s phone, Janet testified she denied knowing anything about the voicemail or any bullying of Kate.
Janet allegedly wrote to Chris on Facebook that Terry thought she had called Kate “a whor*” because “y’all dating.”
Janet alleged that he started dating her friend Kate after she broke up with Chris.
While the trial seems to capture the dynamics of a movie like “Mean Girls,” education and sexual assault experts are watching the trial closely because the case offers a window into the alleged failures of K-12 schools to uphold their responsibilities to protect students from sexual harassment and sexual assault.
The day ended with Kate’s homeroom and math teacher, Megan Carr, testifying in great detail about how she graded homework assignments. Carr said she learned that Kate had said she was being bullied by her locker.
Sona Rewari, an attorney for Fairfax County Public Schools, asked Carr, “Did you observe sexual words being used in a non-sexual way?”
Carr said yes, “two girls could be walking down the hall and say, ‘You’re such a b.” Carr used the letter “b” to describe the word “bitch.”
The teacher continued, “And it’s in friendly teasing, in a nice way.”
Asra Q. Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and a Fairfax County Times contributor. She can be reached at asra@asranomani.com and @AsraNomani on social media to share tips, feedback, and story ideas. She co-founded the Pearl Project, which investigates stories in the public interest. The jury trial of B.R. v. Fairfax County School Board et al. is open to the public, and it is being held in Courtroom 1000 of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at 401 Courthouse Square in Alexandria. The trial starts every day at about 9 a.m. and runs through 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. with a lunch break around 1 p.m. The trial will continue for an estimated two more weeks. The defense is expected to make its arguments for the duration of the trial with cross-examinations by the plaintiff.
