The Emma piece was surprising to me. They had incidents dating as recently as last year…
@monica20 The Emma report was imo much more thorough than the Choate report, and it appears that the Emma investigative attorneys were afforded significantly more latitude than those investigating Choate. In particular, the Emma lawyers tracked down third party reports and apparently had unfettered access to personnel files. That report gave me a lot of confidence that Emma was truly attempting to be as open and thorough as possible given their institutional limitations and priorities.
From my reading of the Choate report, I do not have any confidence that the report would have picked up recent instances of abuse if there were any. Schools and institutions have increasingly turned to confidential settlements, in which the victim agrees to maintain confidentiality (with the usual carve-outs for subpoenas and pursuant to court orders, etc.). Since Choate did not waive attorney client privilege, and did not (apparently) afford unfettered access to personnel files, the Choate attorneys might not have been aware of all abuse allegations, especially recent ones covered by settlement agreements. Of course, someone always knows about these, and that’s why I continue to be troubled by the explicit admission by the Choate investigators that “we generally refrained from reaching out to a Choate graduate who reportedly experienced adult sexual misconduct but who did not come forward to us, even if we received a report about that graduate from another source” as I mentioned in my post #109 above.
Remember that these reports are largely about spin. The schools would like the public to believe that the behavior is in the distant past, to the maximum extent possible given the facts and the institutional benefits of “coming clean.” Nevertheless, I’m pretty confident that all the schools have cleaned up their acts dramatically, given the attention these scandals are getting now, so I don’t think that sexual abuse, harassment, predation, etc. are significant worries going forward.
@SatchelSF Agreed. Emma’s transparency about the issue is a bit like a model of how schools should be handling such cases. The way St. George’s in particular handled their issue (as detailed by the Globe article) troubled me.
" I continue to be troubled by the explicit admission by the Choate investigators that “we generally refrained from reaching out to a Choate graduate who reportedly experienced adult sexual misconduct but who did not come forward to us, even if we received a report about that graduate from another source”"
There could be a reason to be skeptical about that but it could also serve as attempt to be sensitive to the privacy and needs of potential victims. Not all victims wish to relive it or open that can of worms again. Some have dealt with it and put it in their past. Some aren’t emotional and psychologically ready and able to deal with it, even many years later. I don’t think there is an easy answer here. I would hope that any decision along these lines would be made in conjunction with advice from experts in the field of sexual abuse and victim advocacy/psychology and the best practices of such which I don’t claim to be versed in. Is anyone else?
The Emma Instagram posts addressed the topic @ report, school’s commitment to the investigation, open dialogue, and how the school presented the findings to students. Well received by the students we know there and alumnae (including a woman in her 70’s whose mother & aunt also went there). I don’t recall seeing another school post something like this on Instagram . I feel it was well done. It has been interesting speaking with the older legacies about the report.
Two former headmasters serving as life trustees resigned:
I am so deeply saddened that folks here do not seem to take into account what it has been like for victims of sexual abuse by their teacher. I am one of the victims in the report. My mentor “deflowered” me and this went on for years. I was deeply ashamed this had a deep and lasting impact on my career, mental health, and relationships. I was going to take this secret to my grave, but surprise! I was in the report as a victim. The school knew about it then and they knew about it in 2013 and did nothing. The teacher retired comfortably in 2016 after being there for 40 years. Now i get to re live all those memories and am told by the school to go away. The only reason they did the report was because it was a condition set forth by a victim who came forward. The school’s “transparency” is a bunch of boloney. You cant fix what you don’t understand.
?? Sorry @nomoretears. I dont understand your post. Not all, but a great any of these new claims are driven by money. Society now dictates that all claims as gospel even if there is no proof or evidence. Lack of evidence may be why many were not prosecuted.
@nomoretears, Did they not consult you before putting your story in the report?
Which school?
@nomoretears , I’m sorry this happened to you. I was at CRH for less than a year and a half, yet more than half of the faculty members mentioned in the report were on campus when I was there. The alarming thing to me is that when I heard about the scandal, I was reminded of multiple rumors I heard during my senior year, some of which seemed credible. Yet, none of the names I thought I might see in the report were there - the teachers named were others that I hadn’t even thought of in this light. I doubt the full extent of the problem will ever be uncovered. What’s striking to me is how casually we students discussed the possibility at the time. We regarded the rumored conduct as inappropriate, but consensual. I don’t think it ever crossed our minds to report what we’d heard; the prevailing culture was to brush it off as unsavory but par for the course and likely known to administration anyway. In retrospect, I have no doubt that such abuse could just as easily have happened to me if I’d been less fortunate in which faculty mentors I became close to. As it happened, the teachers who took me under their wing did so not only with great kindness, but also with the utmost adherence to professional boundaries. I’m sorry you weren’t so lucky.