Sexual misconduct at elite boarding schools

Associated Press (via mail.com, April 12, 2016); Wisdom Quarterly

White St. Paul's School student Owen Labrie looks around courtroom during his trial in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord, N.H. He was convicted of  sex crimes (AP).

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That. That's what a rapist looks like.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A series of sexual abuse scandals is forcing a reckoning at some of New England's most exclusive boarding schools and sending a shudder through similar institutions around the country that have long been training grounds for members of America's elite.
 

At St. George's School in Rhode Island, scores of alumni have come forward to complain of being sexually violated by teachers or schoolmates.

 

They said I'd go blind at my elite girls school.

At St. Paul's in New Hampshire, a rape trial revealed a tradition in which senior boys competed to have sex with younger girls. And at New Hampshire's Phillips Exeter Academy, several graduates have accused faculty members of sexual abuse and other inappropriate behavior.
 

Those schools and ones that have yet to be touched by scandal are now rushing to adopt safeguards and reassure parents, while also launching internal investigations and asking former students and others to come forward if they know of any misconduct.

"Absolutely, there is a period of intense self-examination happening," said Pete Upham, executive director of the Association of Boarding Schools, an organization of 280 college prep schools, mostly in the U.S. and Canada.

While similar [rape and molestation] scandals have broken out in the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, ordinary public schools, and a host of other institutions, some abuse victims, alumni, and former faculty members say there are certain features peculiar to elite boarding schools... More