Jane Doe appeals Myers Park sexual assault ruling in favor of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Former Myers Park High School student Jane Doe on Thursday filed an appeal over a case alleging Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools mishandled her sexual assault report.
Doe, named that way in court documents to protect her identify, and her attorney Laura Dunn filed the appeal to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. A jury ruled against Doe last month, saying she didn’t prove Myers Park High, CMS and police mishandled her report of sexual assault on campus in 2015. The appeal, first reported by The Charlotte Ledger, refers to court decisions dating back to August.
U.S. District Judge Robert Conrad dismissed claims of two individual defendants Bradley Leak, the school resource officer at the time of the alleged assault, and Anthony Perkins, a former Myers Park High assistant principal, before the case went to a trial.
Conrad also dismissed the city of Charlotte from the suit during the trial.
After the weeklong trial, a federal jury in Charlotte decided Jan. 20 Doe and her attorneys had not proven CMS and Myers Park High had been “deliberately indifferent” to her assault claims. That’s an essential element of proving discrimination claims such as Doe’s that are filed under Title IX, a federal law prohibiting sexual discrimination by schools or educational programs receiving federal money.
“Jane Doe, with support from her family, has been fighting for justice ever since a fellow student abducted her from Myers Park High School and orally raped her nearby in the bamboo forest on Nov. 3, 2015,” Dunn told The Charlotte Observer on Friday. “Unlike the defendants, the jury believed Jane Doe’s account of what happened. We will not rest until the city, CMS, and their officials take accountability for their failures that day and more generally toward minors sexually abused in the woods surrounding MPHS.”
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools said it had no comment Friday when asked about the appeal.
Doe alleges kidnap, assault
Doe, a junior at Myers Park High at the time, alleges officials did not take “immediate” action to help her after seeing she was being led into the woods on school property by an 18-year-old male student, known as Q.W.
The 18-year-old first flirted with Doe with texts that quickly turned sexual, then urged her repeatedly over a matter of days to skip class with him and leave campus. She finally did on the morning of Nov. 3, 2015. But she claims she was forced to do so. She sent text messages to friends and family calling for help and saying she had been kidnapped.
About a mile away, in an area near Park Road Shopping Center known as “the bamboo forest,” Doe says Q.W. forced her to have oral sex, which damaged her throat and left her sweater stained with semen.
She sent a series of texts to a friend after the incident: “I was attacked.” “I feel so gross.” “If I have aids ima kill myself.”
In her closing arguments to the jury in January, Dunn said the texts were intentionally left out of any incident reports filed by school officials to protect the reputation of Myers Park. Had the school aggressively responded to early reports of Doe’s alleged abduction, the sexual assault would have been prevented, Dunn argued.
The defense for CMS maintained officials thoroughly investigated the incident, followed procedure, believed the incident was consensual and that Doe willingly skipped school with the male, rather than being kidnapped. Q.W. also denied using force, attorneys said.
Another former CMS student’s case heads to trial
Doe’s lawsuit, filed in November 2018, is one of at least three sexual assault cases filed against CMS.
Former Myers Park High student Jill Roe filed a lawsuit in December 2019 that was settled for $50,000 in the spring. Serena Evans, a former Myers Park High student and tennis player who says her report of being raped in a high school bathroom in 2016 wasn’t properly investigated, filed a lawsuit against the district in June 2022.
Evans’ attorney Christina Graziano, of Maryland-based KBA Attorneys, told the Observer the trial is set to begin April 15, 2024.
