Amen to Chessy’s commentary in the Cosmo piece linked by GnocchiB. St. Paul’s response at the end of the piece strains credulity in several aspects, in my opinion.
Thanks, @GnocchiB, for the links. Chessy is a very brave young woman.
This is the statement @QuantMech is referring to and it’s ham-handed at best. Why is he insinuating that Owen, who was convicted, may not be to blame?
As I think about this situation in conjunction with all the other similar “situations” we’re addressing now, I’m struck by the fact that St. Paul’s was, for decades (more than a century!), an all-male school. The addition of girls, even though it happened years ago (1971), created an atmosphere where the boys were the norm and girls were the “other.” (This has happened at numerous other schools that started to accept women long after they were founded. My DH was at Dartmouth when it became coed and still talks about how just seeing a woman on campus was startling.)
IMO, it’s this attitude that women are “other” and “different” and not the norm that permits sexual assault of women to occur – on the trading floor, in a police department, in the executive suite, an in dozens of other places.
It would be interesting to compare the number of sexual assaults against women on a campus like Yale, which used to be all male and is now coed, with a campus like Vassar, which used to be all female and is now coed.
This reminds me of a quibble I had with a guy on Twitter whom I generally respect. He wrote something to the effect that in his youth, kids would run around playing cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers. Would anyone say, “In my youth, kids played with Barbies and dressed up as princesses”? [My italics]
My son wasn’t admitted to St. Paul’s.
Thank goodness!
Aside from the statement quoted by GnocchiB in post #1922, I was uncomfortable with the following statements made in the unattributed “statement from St. Paul’s School” at the end of the Cosmo article:
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“The school has no tradition or culture that would ever allow or condone what happened to Chessy.”
While I agree that the school itself has no tradition or culture of that type, it seems reasonably clear that a small percentage of the male students did have a tradition that comes fairly close to allowing what happened to Chessy, particularly if the legal conclusion that Labrie is innocent of rape is taken into account. The “competition” that the young men held was named after a St. Paul’s alum. I believe that Labrie himself had written an editorial for the student newspaper there, about the inadvisability of “Senior Salutes.” Furthermore, the idea of the “Senior Salute” had somehow percolated out to our local suburban school in Nowheresville, by the middle of the first decade of the current century. It seems very unlikely that “Senior Salutes” were not in place at St. Paul’s until Labrie started there. -
“We’re proud of the culture we’ve built at our school and of our care for students. We teach students extensively about sexual assault prevention, and have strengthened our robust programs on health, well-being, and mutual respect.”
I have seen a statement (from a link in this thread, I think) that a male student at St. Paul’s prepared a “red book” guide to St. Paul’s school that included a statement that sexual initiation was an expected part of life at St. Paul’s (perhaps it was “accepted part”). The student prepared the book/let under the direct supervision of the rector of St. Paul’s (whether the current one or a previous one), according to that same source. I don’t believe that the guide was shared with parents. I think that some of the parents whose daughters were at the school might not have sent them there, had they seen this guide. While one would not have envisioned the assault on Chessy as a likely part of sexual “initiation,” I think that if the male students had the expectation of sexual initiation, then there would be a lot of pressure on young women there. There has also been a report (in Chessy’s legal filing, I believe), that a group of young male students sat outside the dining and rated the looks of the young women going into the dining hall. I don’t think this happened just once. I would view this as part of the culture of the school, if it happened repeatedly. -
The administration did its best to support Chessy. The school worked closely with Chessy’s parents to help her stay and worked very hard to keep Chessy’s identity as confidential as reasonably possible and did so."
From Chessy’s statement, I think that the guidance counselor Buzz did support her, and did as good a job as possible. However, it is pretty clear that Chessy was subjected to an outrageous set of insults when she returned to the school. This suggests expectations of the part of the students that are completely inconsistent with a culture that anyone could be proud of. I don’t think the administration actually did the best possible job of shutting this down. Personally, I also doubt the sincerity of the statement that St. Paul’s “worked very hard to keep Chessy’s identity as confidential as reasonably possible.” I believe that Chessy’s family interpreted the school’s statement that if they filed a lawsuit, Chessy’s identity would have to come out, as a discouragement from filing a lawsuit, placing pressure on the family against filing. It is not 100% clear to me that it is true that her identity would have to become widely known. Perhaps this is so. But it certainly seems likely to exert pressure against filing. I am glad that Chessy and her family withstood the pressure. -
"We are dedicated to our mission of educating students in an environment that is safe and welcoming for everyone, and we are constantly working to improve it.”
Well, I think they have a long way to go. A lot of the St. Paul’s statements remind me of the lines from Casablanca where the local police captain announces that he is “shocked, shocked and appalled to find out that gambling is going on in this place.” A moment or so later, one of Rick’s employees approaches the captain discreetly and says, “Your winnings, Monsieur.”
If the lawsuit had gone to trial, and if I had been on the jury, I would have given the Prouts the entire school, lock, stock, and barrel. This is among the reasons that I could never have been empaneled on the jury in the case. But I hope that the settlement was really, really good.
Regarding SPS’s culture –
I’m guessing that this evidence may have been part of what prompted SPS to settle with the Prouts. It certainly provides more evidence of wrongdoing and would have further enraged me if I were the victim’s parents.
I wonder why heads haven’t rolled on the board of trustees.
Well…the board of trustees is elected.
Who knows what is going on internally. It was announced in January that the rector has resigned and will leave at the end of the 2018-19 academic year. https://www.sps.edu/page/news-detail?pk=977015 Maybe his departure has nothing to do with this mess, but maybe it does. It’s noteworthy that more women were elected to the board in 2016, after the Labrie trial. Any connection with what had happened? I don’t know, but it’s possible.
From the Concord Monitor earlier this week.
"After a new delay, the New Hampshire Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Owen Labrie’s direct appeal of his 2015 sexual assault convictions this fall.
Each side was scheduled to have 15 minutes before the court on June 14, but oral arguments were postponed Friday at the request of Labrie’s attorney, Jaye Rancourt, who wrote that she’ll be on vacation at that time. The court ordered the case rescheduled for the September oral arguments session."
"In his discretionary appeal, Labrie argues that he received ineffective counsel leading to his convictions. Appellate defender Christopher Johnson is representing Labrie as he challenges Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Larry Smukler’s decision in April 2017 not to grant him a new trial. Smukler said in his ruling that Labrie failed to prove that his high-profile legal team was “constitutionally ineffective.”
That case has not yet been scheduled for oral arguments."
So he has 2 different lawyers for the 2 different appeals?
Jaye Rancourt can’t handle his appeal for ineffective counsel as she was part of the counsel he is complaining about.
Did you all see this lovely update re Brock Turner?
Oh yeah. The Brock thread has bee updated. Nice argument. Not.
The bumping of this thread for an unrelated case made me wonder how things are progressing on this case, since it’s been about 3 years since Labrie’s conviction. I found this update from last week:
https://www.concordmonitor.com/NH-Supreme-Court-oral-arguments-Owen-Labrie-19085384
“The New Hampshire Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Owen Labrie’s first appeal of his 2015 sexual assault convictions on Sept. 13.”
“In his discretionary appeal, Labrie argues that he received ineffective counsel leading to his convictions. Appellate defender Christopher Johnson is representing Labrie as he challenges Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Larry Smukler’s decision in April 2017 not to grant him a new trial.”
It would be interesting to know the specific issues raised on appeal especially with respect to any claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.
You can wade through the legal documents here: https://www.courts.state.nh.us/caseinfo/pdf/labrie/index.htm
@MaterS : Thank you !
You have to question the lawyers capability when he totally got the shaft on the computer charge from a jury that rightfully, in my opinion, found him guilty of sexual misdemeanor and guilty of felony use of a computer. Oh my.
Brock Turner has lost his appeal
Among other reasons, it states -