Lawsuits Target Virginia School Board Sex-Assault Response

A pair of lawsuits that for years has plagued Virginia’s largest school system with allegations that it ignored students’ accusations of sex assaults are back in front of federal judges.

One of the lawsuits includes allegations of horrific abuse suffered by a student at a Fairfax County middle school and was the basis for a 2014 federal investigation.

The lawsuits attracted low-level attention when they were filed before the pandemic and became caught up in appeals. Now, both cases are moving forward again at a time when schools’ responses to alleged sex assaults are receiving more intense scrutiny, as evidenced by the national attention in neighboring Loudoun County.

The middle schooler filed an amended complaint earlier this month after the school board’s efforts to block her suit were rejected. Her ordeal began in October 2011, according to the lawsuit, when she was a seventh-grader at Rachel Carson Middle School in Reston. A classmate started telling others that he’d engaged in sexual activity with the girl, identified only by her initials in the lawsuit.

As rumors spread, she started to face harassment and name-calling at her locker in hallways. Then, she alleges, a boy at the school began routinely sexually assaulting her—sometimes with others joining the assault—and threatening her to remain silent… (Excerpt from The Epoch Times)