During the spring of 2014, I told a few fellow alums of my plans for writing a novel about a divorce lawyer who had survived teacher predation at her elite, all girls' prep school. My plans were not well received, to put it mildly. One woman called my home, insisting that I not write this book. Several others told me the book would upset a lot of alums, and that it would definitely piss off the school. I was told to expect to lose friends and acquaintances from our alum community if I proceeded.
One of my colleagues, however, mentioned the widespread sexual abuses at the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, that had been exposed in The New York Times. I'm ashamed to admit that I had no knowledge of the Horace Mann scandals, and that I'd had no idea that prep school predation had occurred at any school other than my own.
Since then, I've read Amos Kamil's articles in both the NYT and The New Yorker, along with stories in The Wall Street Journal and scores of other reports about abuses at other American prep schools.
Those schools include, in no particular order: Yeshiva, Poly Prep, Carolina Friends, Deerfield, Hackley, Woodward, Green Meadow Waldorf, The International School, St. Paul's, The Potomac School, Indian Mountain, Williston Northampton, Marlborough School, Solebury School, St. Francis Prep, Fessenden School, The American School in Japan, Hotchkiss, and most recently, St. George's School... the list of private secondary schools with predator teachers amongst their midst doesn't stop with the latest sordid revelation. It just keeps growing.
Those schools include, in no particular order: Yeshiva, Poly Prep, Carolina Friends, Deerfield, Hackley, Woodward, Green Meadow Waldorf, The International School, St. Paul's, The Potomac School, Indian Mountain, Williston Northampton, Marlborough School, Solebury School, St. Francis Prep, Fessenden School, The American School in Japan, Hotchkiss, and most recently, St. George's School... the list of private secondary schools with predator teachers amongst their midst doesn't stop with the latest sordid revelation. It just keeps growing.
As for my own alma mater? Silence, to this day. Except for the ponderous tome extolling the proud legacy of our indomitable founder, in which the emeritus assistant head of school unapologetically avers that the sexual abuses of students during my era by "a few" misguided teachers was an anomaly brought about by the subpar quality of the student body (not even kidding) and the permissiveness of the seventies.
To which I say: Bullshit.
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