A federal judge has rejected a request to file a lawsuit against Virginia’s largest school system, saying it was indifferent to claims of sexual abuse and harassment by middle school students.
In November, the Fairfax County Board of Education filed a motion to dismiss a long-running lawsuit alleging that evidence was discovered that a former middle school student fabricated allegations that she was raped and sexually abused by classmates on and off campus. .
But in a recently released order, U.S. District Judge Rossi Alston said it would be “overreach” for the school system to seek dismissal at this stage based on allegations of fraud before the court.
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Alston said the Facebook messages that the school said were evidence of the plaintiff’s lies were not authenticated. And as a legal matter, Alston said that even if the student lied about what happened to him, that alone is not enough to throw out the case before it is tried by a jury.
The middle school student who raised the allegations in 2011 is now 24 years old, but is not identified by name in court documents. Her allegations were the basis of a 2014 settlement between the school system and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over her accusations that the district did not properly investigate her complaints.
A federal judge has denied a request by Virginia’s Fairfax County School Board to dismiss a long-running lawsuit over alleged mishandling of a 2011 sexual abuse case.
In 2019, she filed a civil lawsuit against the school board, her two alleged attackers, and others. The case has been locked in a controversial legal dispute ever since.
The student claims she was sexually assaulted multiple times and was gang-raped in a utility closet in 2012. She claims the attacks escalated while teachers, counselors and administrators ignored her complaints of abuse.
The school board filed a motion to dismiss based on fraud after discovering Facebook messages between the student and a classmate who is said to be one of the primary attackers. The messages show that the two were actually boyfriend and girlfriend, and that the girl had sought sexual contact with him during a period in which she claims he raped her and threatened her. .
In his ruling released last week, Alston said there is currently no evidence that the Facebook messages are genuine. The judge noted that the school had discovered them too late during the discovery process. The incriminating messages were also sent from an account identified only as a “Facebook user.”
The Board of Education countered that the messages were easy to authenticate and that the content of the messages made it clear that they were sent by the plaintiff.
The case, scheduled for trial in March, is one of several the school system has fought in recent years, costing millions of dollars in legal fees.
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The incident and similar accusations in neighboring Loudoun County have drawn intense attention as Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin criticized the local school system’s handling of sexual assault accusations.
