The father of a biracial Florida teen filed a federal lawsuit against the Brevard County school board, claiming his 14-year-old daughter was improperly strip-searched by staff, bullied and racially harassed by students, while school officials ignored the increasingly exasperated family’s complaints.
The lawsuit filed by Nicholas Dayton on Nov. 14 in a Florida U.S. District Court in Orlando and obtained by Atlanta Black Star claims Carrie Humphrys, the assistant principal at Eau Gallie High School in Melbourne, strip-searched his daughter three times in violation of district policy, apparently seeking contraband that she never found on the ninth grader, who was humiliated and traumatized by the violation of her body and her civil rights.
Identified in the complaint as M.D., the girl is an honor student with a 3.8 GPA who moved to Melbourne in 2023 and entered L.B. Johnson Middle School, where she faced daily harassment from a male student, who allegedly called her and other female and minority students misogynistic and racial slurs over several months beginning in August 2023.
Despite ongoing complaints about the racial slurs by students of color to teachers and school staff, and a formal complaint by Dayton, her adoptive father, to the assistant principal, the school ignored the complaints, refused to interview victims, and failed to notify parents of the complaining students, the lawsuit says, in violation of school board protocol.
By March of 2024, the inaction of school and board officials prompted the Daytons to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against Brevard County Schools for failing to protect students of color and for falsifying documents regarding the reporting of violence and bullying. The district had falsely reported the number of bullying cases as “zero” as far back as 2019, the filing claims.
Their complaint to the feds deemed the Daytons as “whistleblowers” by the school board and led to retaliation against the girl and her family, the lawsuit says.
In August of 2024, M.D. began ninth grade at Eau Gallie High, where she continued to be bullied and harassed by students and subjected to disparaging comments by staff for “unknown reasons,” the complaint alleges.
Coleman Watson, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, told Atlanta Black Star that M.D. was called “ni–er” and “black monkey” repeatedly by other students in both middle school and high school, and was also bullied as the new kid who “dressed differently.”
The girl continued to maintain her honor student status in high school, the complaint says, but some teachers apparently doubted her work and gave her lower grades until she and her parents were forced to prove that she actually did the assignments herself.
In September 2024, school officials called the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) and alleged that M.D. was pregnant and had been molested by Dayton, prompting a police and agency investigation.
The Daytons immediately went to their pediatrician, who confirmed that M.D. had never been pregnant, while the girl adamantly denied any molestation by her father or anyone else, the lawsuit says. The Daytons, in turn, filed a notice to DCF demanding an investigation into the false reporting.
In the meantime, news of the allegations leaked out to the school community and “spread like wildfire,” and M.D. began to experience ridicule and bullying about the false pregnancy and molestation rumors from fellow students, while Dayton’s reputation was damaged.
Later that month, M.D. was pulled out of class by Humphrys into a room where the assistant principal demanded that she lift up her shirt and bra, exposing her breasts, finding no contraband or wrongful items, according to the complaint.
The strip-search was repeated again the next day, this time in the office of Humphrys and in the presence of a male staff member, who leaned against a doorway and watched as the girl exposed and shook her breasts as Humphrys demanded. Finding nothing they sought in her bag or on her person, M.D. was sent back to class.
Both strip-searches violated school board policy in that another adult of the same gender as M.D. should have been present during the search, and the girl’s parents should have been notified.
Later that day, Oct. 1, 2024, after his daughter told him what happened, Dayton sent this email to Brevard Superintendent Mark Rendell:
“We are livid!
Our daughter was made to lift her shirt, pull out her bra and shake in front of a man in a room.
The humiliation and indignity that the Eau Gallie Administration continues to heap upon our child is monstrous.”
The Daytons
M.D. showed behavior of trauma and anxiety the following day, the complaint says, and thereafter began to see a therapist.
In mid-October, school board officials met with Dayton about “the illegal strip-searches, false molestation reporting and the hostile environment that M.D. was experiencing,” the complaint says. The board, including Assistant Superintendent James Rehmer and Principal Keith Barton, promised to correct the hostile environment and abide by school board policy.
On Oct. 21, 2024, Dayton filed an incident report with the Brevard County School Board complaining about the strip-search and demanding an investigation.
On that same day, Humphrys conducted a third strip-search of M.D., who was wearing a pink homecoming dress, and this time was alone in the room with the assistant principal, again in violation of board policy, the lawsuit says. That search also yielded no contraband.
On Oct. 31, 2024, Principal Barton admitted fault regarding the strip-search of Oct. 21 via email, writing to Dayton that the staff did not follow district policy “which requires that a search of a student’s person or intimate belongings be conducted by a staff member of the same gender, and only in exceptional circumstances when there is an immediate threat to the health or safety of the student or others.”
Principal Barton said he had reviewed the search policy with each member of the administrative team individually and then conducted a group meeting to clarify the policy, and said, “I sincerely apologize to you, [M.D.] and your family for the impact this oversight has caused.”
When asked what the assistant principal was looking for, Watson told Atlanta Black Star that “AP Humphrys never articulated why she conducted the searches,” noting that the school now denies that the strip-searches ever happened.
“None of the searches were done with parental consent,” he said. “It is yet another example of the school retaliating against Mr. Dayton for simply standing up for his daughter.”
Because the Brevard County school board declined to investigate the strip-searches or to curb the ongoing harassment and hostile environment of M.D. by other students, Dayton filed another complaint with the state department of education in November 2024.
Last April, DCF and police investigators followed up on the molestation allegations, interviewing M.D. at school and at home. She continued to insist that she had never been molested by Dayton or by anyone.
After the interviews, the girl spoke to her therapist. The lawsuit asserts that she “has suffered great emotional harm in the hands of the School board and staff … who never had M.D.’s best interests at heart.”
The plaintiffs accuse Humphrys of violating the girl’s Fourth Amendment right against illegal search and seizure by conducting an invasive search of her person without reasonable suspicion that she possessed contraband and based on unreliable hearsay from a student, while knowing her conduct would likely result in M.D.’s mental and emotional distress.
The lawsuit accuses the school board of failing to adequately train school personnel on the scope and limits of student searches, including the constitutional prohibition on unreasonable and invasive searches, and the need to respect student privacy and bodily integrity.
The school board’s failure to train and supervise its employees was not an isolated oversight, the complaint contends, but reflects “a pattern of deliberate indifference to the rights of students” as evidenced by incidents where staff or administrators “disregard many policies without consequence.”
Among those, the lawsuit says, was an incident in August 2024, when Avanese Taylor filed suit against the school board after her minor son was bullied by other students, but the board failed to investigate the incident and failed to enforce school policies, and another in March 2024, when the parents of John and Tina Conover filed suit against the school board based on the lack of action to protect their child from constant bullying and failing to investigate.
The lawsuit also accuses the school board of defamation for making defamatory statements regarding the alleged molestation and pregnancy of M.D. by her adoptive father. Besides causing Dayton personal and professional harm, the lawsuit claims that the Department of Children and Families has halted the process of the Dayton family to adopt another child due to the allegations and the lack of due process provided by the school board to clear his name.
The family seeks a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages and legal costs, and seeks court-ordered systemic reforms to ensure Brevard Public Schools comply with student protection policies and constitutional standards, according to a press release.
Brevard Public Schools told Florida Today they were aware of the allegations in the lawsuit and couldn’t comment on specifics, but denied that strip-searches ever took place.
“While we cannot comment on the specifics of that case, we want to be absolutely clear: Brevard Public Schools does not strip-search students,” said Chief Strategic Communications Officer Janet Murnaghan in an email. “We have never conducted strip-searches, and we never will. The safety, dignity, and well-being of our students remain our highest priority.”
Under Florida law, a strip-search is defined as “having an arrested person remove or arrange some or all of his or her clothing so as to permit a visual or manual inspection of the genitals; buttocks; anus; breasts, in the case of a female; or undergarments of such person.”
The defendants — Brevard County School Board, Carrie Humphrys, and 10 unnamed school employees — have 21 days after being served with the lawsuit, or until Dec. 6, to file a response.
Watson said M.D.’s parents “decided to move [her] to another school that felt safe, due to the circumstances.”
