(Updated on 1/14/2022 at 4:30 p.m.) The Fairfax County School Board has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a former student’s sexual assault lawsuit, a move that could reshape how the federal law against sexual violence in schools is interpreted.
A petition filed by the school board on Dec. 30 argues that public school systems can’t be held liable for sexual harassment and assault unless officials knew an assault took place and could have prevented it.
A woman alleges that Fairfax County police not only benefited from a sex trafficking ring that victimized her for years but also harmed efforts trying to stop it.
She is suing several former Fairfax County officers, including former Chief Ed Roessler, as well as the county itself. The lawsuit claims the woman — identified as a mother with the pseudonym Jane Doe — was forced to have sex with multiple men per day as part of a trafficking operation exposed in 2018 by an FBI investigation.
Fairfax County Public Schools has asked a federal appeals court to postpone an ordered retrial of a former Oakton High School student’s sexual assault lawsuit, setting up a possible escalation of the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The school system plans to file a petition for a writ of certiorari requesting that the Supreme Court take up the case, according to Public Justice, the nonprofit legal organization that represents the student, who has only been identified as Jane Doe.
