Thread by @AmicaAli

Since we are now discussing #RhodeIsland, #eliteprepschools, #religion, #abuseallegations and #highschoolbehaviors, seems #StGeorges, provides a telling example of the culture often prevalent among some prominent prep schools. vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/s…

2/ #StGeorge’s, an elite boarding school in #RhodeIsland, has been engulfed by a scandal over alleged sexual abuse spanning decades, with at least 40 alleged victims and a dozen alleged staff and student perpetrators.

3/ “Across the archipelago of #prepschools clustered mainly in the northeastern US, a truth-and-reconciliation process is fitfully unfolding as school after school sends letters to alumni acknowledging past abuse and asking if they, too, were abused.”

4/ “This is a #school that charges $56,000 in #annualtuition and #boardingfees, and also one which, like many of its peers, was founded not merely to #educate but to provide #moralinstruction, to inculcate that character-forming ethos known as muscular #Christianity.”

5/ “Betrayals of the 70’s and 80’, among other things, a very expensive and damaging hypocrisy, forcing a privileged corner of America to wonder what went wrong. Hawkins Cramer, a 1985 grad of #StGeorge’s, who says he was abused there: “Where were the f’ing adults?”

6/ In 1974 the sports-car-driving associate chaplain had raped one young man, the dean fired him but seemed not to fully grasp the harm that inflicted or the danger he represented. Nor did he report it to the #RhodeIslandStatePolice or the #DepartmentofChildrenYouthFamilies.”

7/ “The chaplain was paid an additional month’s salary, reimbursed for his moving expenses and told him not to return. So he instead went on to serve as dean and chaplain at Chatham Hall, a #girlsprepschool in VA and as rector at a church in NC from 1984 to 2006.”

8/ “On February 5, 1980, another was fired after a several-day investigation during which the dean interviewed a number of girls about their experiences. At least 20 students were abused during the individuals seven years at St. George’s.”

9/ “The dean failed to report it to any state agencies. Fired the trainer, announced at a school assembly he had left due to a health issue, given a pension, a letter of recommendation describing him as “most certainly competent” and attributed his departure to medical leave.”

10/ “We bragged that you could fit all the rules of the school on one side of an 8 1/2-by-11-inch piece of paper,” says Bryce Traister (class of ‘86). “You could go down to the beach and smoke pot and drink and have sex and surf,” a late-80s grad recalls. “It was heaven.”

11/ “The school became a factory for alienated kids whose parenting had been outsourced to a not very nurturing place. Freshmen and sophs were effectively in the care of the seniors who ran the dorms. A Darwinian environment. Certain years, the hazing got way, way out of hand.”

12/ In 1978, a Sr. made a freshman stand on a trash can and pull down his boxer shorts, abusing him with a broomstick in front of others, was neither a secret nor taken seriously by the school: later a yearbook photo was captioned: “It’s better than a broomstick!”

13/ “Four years later, several boys experienced unwanted nighttime visits from Srs trying to fondle them. In 1982, one awoke to find a darkness-obscured figure touching him, he slept with a knife under his pillow for the remainder of the semester.”

14/ “The same year, some seniors took a freshman boy to a dorm basement, where they beat him up and raped him with a pencil. A female of the class of 1987 went to her adviser, reported that something untoward was clearly going on and was told to mind her own business.”

15/ More details, year after year, other schools, other people, cycle continued, lives changed, impacted by others actions. And why the last words of this story need to be acknowledged...the words of those who personally endured what some of will clearly never understand. 🙏🏻

16/ THIS is a symptom of part of a much larger problem. A problem we are seeing grow on a daily basis. One that we will never be able to fully resolve or alter as long as we have Congressmen, Judges and a President, among others, who chose to deny truth and attack the victims.