The now-viral video of a recent passing period at Hazelbrook Middle School in Tualatin starts off slowly, students filing past without incident.
Then, about 10 seconds in, the first sense of foreboding kicks in when a student off camera asks a question, “How do you know?”
The answer becomes clear five seconds later, when the frame widens to show a student who has been waiting in the hallway suddenly reach out and grab an unsuspecting classmate by her backpack, slamming her violently to the floor. The assailant yanks the victim’s hair back and forth and smacks her repeatedly on the shoulder before landing a final blow on her head, cursing at her and walking away.
The victim, weeping, picks herself up slowly, saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t do anything,” and telling onlookers she can’t breathe.
School officials in Tigard-Tualatin, a suburb southwest of Portland, say the incident is now under criminal investigation. The attacker was arrested and is facing assault charges, said Jennifer Massey, the public information officer for the Tualatin Police Department; the case was referred to the Washington County Juvenile Department. The district would not comment on the specific disciplinary actions it had taken against the attacker.
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That “How do you know” query is the tip-off that students were stationed nearby on purpose and in advance, there to record the fight and then upload it to social media, a disturbing new wrinkle in the student fight videos that dot Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. In the pandemic’s aftermath, middle schools in particular have been ground zero for fights and behavior issues; in response, schools have experimented with everything from restorative justice and more counselors to adding campus security officials.
At Hazelbrook, officials have been trying to enforce a no phones in school policy this year to combat exactly this kind of incident, Principal Lisa Dailey told a roomful of parents at a districtwide safety and security forum this week.
“We’re seeing a lack of the ability to resolve conflict,” Dailey said. “Middle schoolers want justice. They want justice for their friends. They want justice when they feel they were wronged. How they work through that is something we need to teach them how to do. Coming out of the pandemic, we really saw an increase in that (mindset). There’s been just one reaction, to go from zero to 10 immediately.”
Video of the incident made its way around the Tigard-Tualatin community, and then to conservative commentators, who seized upon the appearance and clothing of the perpetrator and concluded without confirmation that they were transgender. It was shared by former competitive swimmer Riley Gaines, an activist who has campaigned against the participation of transgender women in women’s sports, in a post on Twitter that has been viewed more than 9 million times.
Under federal privacy laws, the school district cannot comment on a student’s gender identity, district spokesperson Traci Rose said.
That assumption prompted an onslaught of furious, often profane calls to the district and to the school from people around the country, as those who encountered the incident online assumed wrongly that the perpetrator had been differently disciplined due to their supposed gender identity.
By Thursday evening, the din had grown loud enough that the members of the Tigard-Tualatin School Board released a joint statement pushing back on the emerging national narrative.
“Students and adults contributed to the sharing of this recording that exposed minors who were directly and indirectly involved without consent,” board members said in the statement. “In addition, the sharing of this incident has spread across the country and beyond, inspiring false information and a focus and discourse on sexual identity. These acts have contributed to the trauma individuals and families are already experiencing.”
Locally, the incident has prompted a discussion in the district around its discipline policies more generally, with some parents calling for the use of a “zero tolerance” policy in any instance of physical violence. Tigard-Tualatin Superintendent Sue Rieke Smith at Wednesday’s forum defended the district’s progressive discipline policies, which stress helping students learn to recover from their mistakes.
“The research is clear. Zero tolerance has not worked and it exacerbates the potential for school violence,” she said. “What is more important is that there is a consequence that is meted out and there are supports that are wrapped around that student.”
— Julia Silverman, @jrlsilverman, jsilverman@oregonian.com