By Delayna Earley
The Island News
A Beaufort County teacher has filed a defamation lawsuit against several community members, a state lawmaker, the host of a local YouTube political show, and the author of an online blog alleging that they “attacked her” on social media because of a survey that she gave out to students in her class.
Mardy Burleson, a multimedia design and engineering teacher at Hilton Head Island Middle School, filed a lawsuit last week stating which accused five individuals of publicly labeling her as a “groomer” after she asked students to fill out an option survey in her class that included questions about their preferred pronouns.
She claims in the suit that her reputation has been damaged by the defamation and her safety was put in jeopardy.
Burleson is suing S.C. State Rep. Thomas Beach of District 10; David Cook, a Hilton Head Island parent who has been critical of BCSD’s book review process; Elizabeth (Ivie) Szalai, a parent who submitted the list of 97 books to the district to be reviewed; Michael Covert, former Beaufort County Council member who also sent the list of books to BCSD and has a YouTube show; Corey Whittington, otherwise known as Corey Allen, who is the author of online blog “The Overton Report”.
Attorney Meg Phelan of the Equality Legal Action Fund, which is a group of volunteer attorneys who represent public officials, educators and members of the LGBTQIA+ community in defamation cases, is representing Burleson in the suit.
In the suit, Burleson says that the defendants accused her of keeping information from parents in a public campaign against her because of an optional survey that she asked students to fill out that was designed to get to know the students better.
In the survey, Burleson asked students to write down their preferred names and pronouns and she encouraged students to be open and honest, promising to keep the answers just between her and the students.
One of the defendants, David Cook, began to express concern after his child came home and shared the survey with him.
According to court filings, Cook initially reached out to school administration because he believed that the survey was secretive and inappropriate, but as the situation escalated, he and the other named defendants began to publicly accuse her of keeping the survey secret and “grooming” students.
Court filings also alleged that the defendants not only accused Burleson of “grooming” but also promoting an “overtly sexualized lifestyle.”
In the suit, Burleson alleges that the defamatory and false statements damaged her reputation as a teacher in addition to causing her and her family emotional distress.
She also alleges that the accusations were maliciously made to damage her professional and personal reputations, and the attacks continued even after Burleson made changes to the survey to prevent any issues going forward.
According to the lawsuit, the defendants publicly painted Burleson as someone who is dangerous to be around children by falsely implying that she intended to sexually abuse minors.
She states in the suit that she not only feared the irreparable harm on her professional reputation, but she feared for and her family’s safety after the defendants allegedly brought her child into the attacks.
Burleson is seeking damages for libel and slander alleging that their public statements have caused harm to her reputation and well-being and she is also asking for actual and special damages in addition to punitive damages in hopes of deterring the defendants from continuing with these types of attacks in the future.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
