Midlands principal was fired for strip searching student. Her lawsuit tells different story
A former assistant principal at Airport High School is suing the Lexington 2 school district after she was fired for searching a student.
Naarah Bryant, who was in her first year as the assistant principal at Airport High School during the 2021-22 school year, appealed the superintendent’s decision to fire her to the school board in the spring of 2022. After that was denied, she appealed to a higher court and was also rejected. A year after that appeal was denied in February 2024, she filed a lawsuit in Lexington County on Feb. 4, 2025 arguing that her early termination violated her employment contract with the school.
The school district fired Bryant following a January 2022 incident in which she searched a female student who was believed to have a vape pen in her possession, according to the lawsuit. Bryant was accused of strip searching the student, with a male school resource officer present, in violation of a district policy.
Bryant’s version of the story was different, according to the lawsuit. After bringing the student into the office of another assistant principal at the school, Bryant said she told the student they’d conduct a search of her belongings once the school resource officer arrived and that she might be asked to remove her jacket. Bryant said she was not aware that the student was only wearing a sports bra underneath the jacket.
Before the SRO came in, Bryant asked the student if she had anything on underneath her jacket and the student told her yes, the lawsuit said. The student then unzipped her own jacket, leaving her in only a sports bra. Bryant and the SRO eventually found four vape pens with tobacco and one with marijuana, the lawsuit said, and school officials told her they’d recommend her for expulsion.
The next day, the student emailed the school district complaining of the strip search, complaining that Bryant and the SRO were disrespectful to her and called her “dumb” and “a liar.”
“While I was standing in the room with just my bra on and my pants, Officer Lopez walked into the room, which also made me very uncomfortable,” she said in her email, included in legal documents from Bryant’s appeal.
The day after Bryant conducted the search of the student she was placed on paid administrative leave. By early April, the school district fired Bryant and the district’s board of trustees upheld the decision, despite her appeal. The new lawsuit Bryant has filed seeks compensation for damages like loss of income and harm to her reputation.
The school district moved to dismiss the lawsuit in a March 5 filing. School district officials declined to comment on the matter.
