Jury rejects claims that Fairfax schools mishandled teen’s rape claims

A 24-year-old woman who sued school officials in Fairfax County, Va., for millions of dollars, saying they mishandled allegations more than a decade ago that she was raped, lost her case Wednesday when she was unable to convince a federal jury that the school system had failed her.

The woman, identified in legal records only by the initials B.R., testified through tears at times in U.S. District Court in Alexandria that she was bullied and harassed in 2011 as a student at Rachel Carson Middle School in Herndon, a pattern of abuse that she said escalated to gang rape. In a lawsuit filed in 2019, B.R. alleged that Fairfax County Public Schools failed to provide her with a safe learning environment in violation of Title IX, the law that forbids sex discrimination in federally funded schools.