Exclusive boarding schools face reckoning on sexual abuse

Exclusive boarding schools face reckoning on sexual abuse

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A alternation of animal corruption scandals is banishment a reckoning at some of New England's a lot of absolute boarding schools and sending a convulse through agnate institutions about the country that accept continued been training area for associates of America's elite.

At St. George's Academy in Rhode Island, array of alumni accept arise advanced to accuse of getting sexually abandoned by agents or schoolmates. At St. Paul's in New Hampshire, a abduction balloon arise a attitude in which chief boys competed to accept sex with adolescent girls. And at New Hampshire's Phillips Exeter Academy, several graduates accept accused adroitness associates of animal corruption and added inappropriate behavior.

Those schools and ones that accept yet to be affected by aspersion are now hasty to accept safeguards and assure parents, while aswell ablution centralized investigations and allurement above acceptance and others to arise advanced if they apperceive of any misconduct.

"Absolutely, there is a aeon of acute brooding happening," said Pete Upham, controlling ambassador of the Association of Boarding Schools, an alignment of 280 academy basic schools, mostly in the U.S. and Canada.

While agnate scandals accept torn out in the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, accustomed accessible schools and a host of added institutions, some corruption victims, alumni and above adroitness associates say there are assertive appearance appropriate to aristocratic boarding schools that contributed to problems there.

For one thing, the acceptance are active abroad from home in dorms in abutting adjacency to one addition and to teachers, and generally do not see their parents for months at a time. Acceptance as adolescent as 13 are on their own for the aboriginal time. Also, the institutions, abounding modeled on English boarding schools, generally advance a stiff-upper-lip mentality and accept a continued attitude of upperclassmen hazing adolescent students.

"It's an ambiance congenital on amenities and affability and not talking about sex and money. And there's an ambiance of getting stoic, I guess, and not talking about claimed failings. It's an ambiance about success and competition," said Anne Scott, who played a above role in advertisement the corruption at St. George's by cogent The Boston Globe endure year about getting raped again by the able-bodied trainer in the 1970s.

St. George's, an Episcopal academy abreast Newport, afresh apologized for decades of corruption and for declining to abode it to the able authorities. It assassin an absolute investigator in January, and victims' attorneys said they are acquainted of aboveboard letters of rape, cuddle or added corruption involving added than 50 victims, with some cases conceivably as contempo as 2011.

None of the accusations accept resulted in bent charges, but accompaniment badge are investigating.

Exclusive boarding schools face reckoning on sexual abuse

In the St. Paul's case, 2014 alum Owen Labrie was bedevilled endure year and bedevilled to a year in bastille for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old apprentice babe as allotment of a antagonism accepted about campus as the Chief Salute.

St. Paul's has brought in experts to acquaint acceptance about aggravation and relationships and has threatened to belch anyone accommodating in animal competitions at the 160-year-old Episcopal school, whose alumni cover Secretary of Accompaniment John Kerry, above FBI Ambassador Robert Mueller, at atomic 13 U.S. ambassadors and three Pulitzer Prize winners.

New Hampshire's Phillips Exeter Academy, which was founded in 1781 and is the alma academy of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and President Franklin Pierce, accustomed endure ages that a abecedary who was affected into retirement in 2011 had accepted to two cases of animal delinquency dating aback to the 1970s and '80s.

Since the disclosure, badge said they accept accustomed a amount of letters from alumni and are now investigating "sexual delinquency and corruption of acceptance by at atomic two accepted or above adroitness members." Exeter said it has assassin a law close to investigate.

Seisei Tatebe-Goddu, a 2001 Exeter graduate, said she was afflicted to see some adroitness associates and alumni cogent abutment for the abecedary on Facebook. She said accepted acceptance approached her to say "there is still a problem, there still needs to be a solution, and the band-aid needs to arise fast."

"The academy needs to yield leadership. It needs to set the tone. Without that, you accept kids aggravating to amount it out on their own," she said. "That's not OK."

As for what went wrong, some alumni say the aforetime all-boys' schools were extemporaneous if they began acceptance girls. They say acceptance may aswell be abashed to abode abuse, abnormally if it happened to absorb drugs or alcohol, which are generally area for expulsion.

At St. George's, some alumni recalled an ambiance area the anemic were ridiculed and preyed upon.

A annual fabricated a buried advertence to a 1978 case in which a macho apprentice was sexually brutalized with a broomstick. Holly Johnson, who accelerating in 1995, recalled an adventure involving a boy who was again blimp into a trashcan. She said a adroitness affiliate witnessed it but told her, "Boys will be boys."

"You can accomplish the case that every top academy in America has bullies, but they're not active next to them," Johnson said.

Other alums say their time at the academy was a absolute and unparalleled educational experience. Abounding accept beatific their own accouchement there.

Alix Coolidge, a St. George's alum and accepted parent, said she sees absolute changes in the school's culture. She said her babe has had again opportunities to allocution about relationships and there are several attorneys on campus.

After the St. Paul's scandal, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, wrote to parents endure year about its efforts to action assault, including captivation conversations about animal behavior and account for others. Endure month, Andover wrote to ask that anyone with advice about corruption abode it to the school.

The Pomfret Academy in Connecticut said it, too, is reviewing its behavior and campus ability and has assassin an investigator to accept letters of wrongdoing. Pomfret's ambassador was aforetime an ambassador at St. George's and has accustomed not advertisement some of the declared corruption there to authorities if it came to ablaze added than a decade ago.

And the Association of Boarding Schools arise endure anniversary that it is basic an able assignment force to advance training and practices for preventing animal misconduct.

Upham said abounding boarding schools beyond the U.S. accept in fact been alive for years to abode the problem, abnormally afterwards the Penn Accompaniment furor. Among added things, they accept adopted added acrimonious adroitness accomplishments checks, created tip curve and set abreast safe spaces for humans to allege up, he said.

The contempo scandals arise to accept fabricated it easier for humans to clear themselves.

Eric MacLeish, a advocate for added than 30 declared victims at St. George's, said he has accustomed contempo letters from victims at boarding schools about the country.

"People who anticipation 'Oh, my god, I was the abandoned one,' all of a abrupt they apprehend they were not alone," he said. "It's beatific out shockwaves, and victims are now advancing forward."

Associated Press writer Michael Casey contributed to this report from Concord, New Hampshire.

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