" I’m 100% certain that if the winds shift again, they’d go back to covering up and handling things “quietly” in a heartbeat ".
How can you possibly know that?
Honestly, this thread is like five miles of bad road.
Why?? As bad as what the school have done in covering up the “scandals”? Look, I’m the first one who asked people to look at the school “of today and tomorrow” instead of the school “of yesterday”, but I think it’s natural and perfectly reasonable to ask hard questions and in some ways condemn what the school did before. I haven’t heard of anyone who is about to jump the Choate ship. It goes to show that people still have faith in the school and believe the school administration will make it right. Shouldn’t Choate and proponents of Choate take comfort and even be grateful for that?
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Agreed. Let’s not risk having the thread closed; This is not Point/Counterpoint with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin. College Confidential is not a debate society. State your case and then move on. Nobody’s opinion will change regardless of how brilliant the argument,
@SatchelSF well said. Very balanced perspective.
I feel as if some people are painting a certain image of Choate that isn’t truly realistic. I also feel that the writers in news like to make people/administrations/whatever seem much more dark and devious than they are. BBC literally made their title “US Elite School Choate Rosemary Hall “sorry” Over Sexual Abuse”. I think that Choate did bit more than just say “sorry”. Obviously, Choate’s past has some dark and sketchy spots, but that is in no way reflective of the school that it is today. Are all of the parents on here the exact same people that they were 20-30 years ago? Schools shift and change with the times, along with the administration. Yes, what Choate did in the past/what happened at Choate in the past was not ok. But are we going to blame the current administration for something that happened a long time ago?
I am not remotely trying to subdue what happened, but you have to understand that school administration is fluid, and is constantly shifting. I think that the school is far more safe nowadays, and a really great place. Would the school really be held to the standard that it is today if it was the type of school where kids didn’t feel safe talking to teachers/faculty? No. Unsupportive, secretive, schools typically aren’t considered top schools, as far as I know. Are there dark parts in Choate’s history? Definitely. Could Choate have handled certain issues better? Definitely. Do these things define Choate’s entire past, present, and future? Definitely not.
I think that it’s completely irresponsible to become irate at an administration in 2017 for issues that occurred years and years and more years before its time. Big change can happen in a short time. If I were to judge my own parents for their actions back when they were in their 20s, let’s just say that I would not see my same parents. I think that it’s important to weigh both the good and the bad about each school, but with the understanding that the people working at the school years ago are not necessarily the people working there today. Is it ok to be upset about what happened? Absolutely; I know I am. Is it ok to assume that Choate is the same place, with the same practices, that it was/had over 20 years ago? Nope. This is like blaming Donald Trump for what Dwight Eisenhower may have done to the U.S…
I could go on and on about this, but I figure that I should stop myself. All of this is just my opinion. Is what happened in the 60s-70s-80s-etc ok? Nope. But it seems that 2017 Choate is doing a good job of taking care of the issues, while also taking undeserved blame from some people. Choate isn’t perfect, and neither is you/your kid’s/your parent’s school.
First, my alma mater recently was exposed in a scandal involving 62 students total and 22 faculty over decades. In my year-book alone there were 11 abusers in the faculty and of course classmates of mine who privately suffered at their hands. This institution (unlike Choate) refused to do an independent investigation. The secondary institutional traumatization of victims by the refusal to perform such an unbiased inquiry continues to be immense and ongoing. My good friend’s daughter attends a prestigious day school with a current scandal just outlined on National TV. So–here is my issue-whenever something like this happens at a BOARDING school my family (who have no history of boarding school nor of sleepaway camp until my kids) gets very frightened. I try to reassure them but the concept just is terrifying. This has happened at day schools, religious institutions, etc. but there is something to the intimacy expected at a BS and these violations that just strikes to the heart.
My hope: kids are in touch with us via text and social media and feel safer to reach out . . (old days a public telephone on the wall not an easy way to talk about issues). I do think they are unbelievably naive (even college students) so it is o.k. for us to be broken records at times without scaring them. We let our kids know that our first reaction to anything they bring to us will be to listen carefully before jumping to conclusions or actions. This could help them as well to let us know of their concerns about friends. At my son’s camp they call it: investigation before accusation. By investigation they just mean listening and learning what is up . . If we demonstrate this in issues that are small they should feel we will live it when confronted by bigger issues. . .
Update from the inside: There was a mandatory all school meeting on Friday. Many safeguard policies have already been put in place (starting with current headmaster), and more are coming. Policies surrounding an upcoming senior event changed. Spoke with both of my kiddos and once again they both told me that their extra help meetings are always held in common rooms, faculty office with door open, or in their classrooms. Adviser group meetings are happening this Weekend. Counseling to discuss the past for those who chose to read the report is available.
We are not worried. Choate is the last place a perpetrator would want to be employed in this day and age.
I don’t want to be a broken record here, but again I would caution ascribing noble motives to CRH’s commissioning of this report conducted by the very well respected outside law firm Covington and Burling.
In my opinion the report should be seen as part of an institutional response to shaping a narrative and conducting damage control. The use of the term “independent” is part of that shaping.
First, the law firm which conducted the investigation and prepared the report was retained and compensated by CRH. Its mandate and scope of work were therefore largely dictated by CRH. Although the work is styled as an “investigation,” what was done apparently is quite different from what the general public typically associates with investigations. No sworn testimony, no subpoena power, no capacity to compel the production of evidence from reluctant sources. No conclusions of law or even determinations of prima facie violations of law or policy based on gathered evidence. Much of the evidence appears to be based on voluntary responses to an email sent by CRH to its community. (I’m not faulting CRH here - this is within the broad framework of how corporations and institutions handle allegations and shape opinion, and private institutions do not generally have the powers of compulsion that for instance a public prosecutor would. I’m just trying to point out that “independent” is being used here to connote something in the public’s mind that I do not believe is accurate.)
Second, it appears that the scope of the final report was intentionally limited, perhaps to avoid any uncomfortable disclosures of current practices. From section III.B of the report: “We generally refrained from reaching out to a Choate graduate who reportedly experienced adult sexual misconduct but who did not come forward to us, even if we received a report about that graduate from another source.” Troubling imo - they clearly didn’t want to go down some rabbit holes, and, having been involved professionally with a few corporate investigations, I do not believe that Covington would have written that as a throwaway line or boilerplate.
Last, it appears that CRH has not waived any of its legal privilege: “Because Choate has not waived its attorney client
privilege, we do not know the nature of the advice sought or received.” Section I.C.1. “Other than certain specific assertions of attorney-client privilege, the school gave us access to all documents we requested and helped us locate and contact individuals with whom we wished to speak.” Section III.A. Of course, in order to retain privilege, CRH would have had to go through its files well before Covington had “access,” “scrubbing” them of any privileged attorney-client work product, and we have no way of knowing how broadly that term was construed by its own counsel, which is not named in the report (at least that I saw). Note also the qualifier “access to all documents WE REQUESTED [emphasis added],” (and, by implication, only those documents known to Covington) which is quite different from “full access to School files, records…in order to support her investigations,” which was what was promised by CRH in its letter to its community referenced in Section I.A. Again, Covington is a very careful law firm and I do not believe this qualifier was a throwaway.
I could go on and on about numerous other aspects of the report, but I don’t want to ruffle any more feathers than I have. Oftentimes, the most important parts of a corporate report are buried in the “process” parts, as most people will naturally focus on the juicier “meat” of the wrongdoing described. I just want to caution people out there from accepting blindly efforts such as this report. No doubt this is a useful and good step for the school. If it weren’t, it never would have seen the light of day, just like any other corporate or institutional report 
Yikes. I read the report and feel ill as a parent and as a child and adolescent psychiatrist. I think we have to try to take something practical out of all of this. At my daughter’s college (and others) there is something called “green dot” training. This is an approach to empower bystanders to come to the aid of individuals at threat of abuse. I was struck by the incident in which fellow students came to the aid of the victim. I also imagine that in many other occasions students might have known or suspected there were problems and perhaps were afraid to intervene. I talk to my kids and patients about the obligation to go to adults when they believe a friend or classmate is in trouble of whatever type–to see that if this is done out of “care and concern” that it should happen even OVER the protest of the other individual. Misguided efforts to protect the privacy of others lead to some of these issues staying underground. I know that at some of the BS students do understand their responsibilities in this area and have come to advisors or health services with observations and concerns-knowing they will be handled appropriately. I guess in addition to talking to my kids about their own safety, I will remind them of their responsibility to be upstanders whether it is related to bullying or abuse of whatever kind.
My last post on this. You can ascribe whatever motives you wish to Choate’s efforts to come clean. You can say it’s just because of the publicity. You can whip out self-important lawyer arguments and look for hidden intent and liabilities. You can look sourly on the school’s past misdeeds, not permitting the institution to have the same opportunity to move forward as you so often have given yourself during your own life. Personally, I don’t care about the reason. At some point, someone in a position of power at Choate, the school Head, or the Board said “ok, enough is a enough, We’re better than this. It won’t be easy but let’s get this in our rear view mirror and make sure it never happens again. It’s the right long term decision and the right thing to do.” Kudos to the person or people who took these first steps. This will make Choate an even better school, a more self-aware school.
I’d like to modify my position a little bit (to counter the notion that people never change their opinions, if nothing else). First, while it cannot be characterized as out of “noble intentions”, the investigation initiated by the school is still a welcoming move and I don’t think it was their ONLY option, especially when you see so many other schools are under fire too but still trying to “fight it off”. As a matter of fact, only a few schools have appproached this matter proactively.
Secondly, let’s remember these are incidents that have happened over decades - complied together. It’s easy to lose the perspective that these things are still very rare, and the severity and the damage to victims vary in extent as well. To downplay such heinous crimes committed behind the walls of these expensive elite schools is obviously wrong, but there could be a tendency to blow it out of proportion as well. 1970s and 1980s was a different time, when the awareness of sexual harassment was unlike what we have today. We could give the school administration some benefit of the doubt for incidents that occurred back then. To me, the incidents that happened more recently are more troublesome, and deserve more hard questions and close watch on what the school will do to address.
@sadieshadow Yes, it takes a read of the report (vs the simple knowledge of such things happened in yet another boarding school) to understand the outrage.
“It’s easy to lose the perspective that these things are still very rare, and the severity and the damage to victims vary in extent as well.”
This comment is not directed at Choate but at all institutions - I’d argue it goes on more than people think. Plenty of people choose to never step forward, even when asked to do so. It takes a lot of internal strength to do so. Some people haven’t dealt with their demons around these issues and others prefer to leave the past in the past.
“there could be a tendency to blow it out of proportion as well. 1970s and 1980s was a different time, when the awareness of sexual harassment was unlike what we have today”
I’ve heard this argument elsewhere and was part of a large discussion about similar events at another boarding school. Some argued it was a different generation, people thought different, “free love” and all. Some went as far as saying they thought the Boston Globe was doing a witch hunt. I take the side of folks knowing it was wrong, even back then. Even in this report, we have descriptions of the teachers involved trying to ensure their actions did not become known. They knew it was wrong, even in the 70s and 80s.
I’m glad it is getting discussed more openly now.
@doschicos I agree that there could be more incidents and victims out there that haven’t or even will never come out. But my sense is that the number of faculty members who take a perverted interest in minor students and actually would act on it is limited at any given time. (It’s a limited number in the general population) It’s true that the setting of BS gives these perverted individuals more access to their potential victims, but BS is not an “idea” place for them either because it is a lot more open and less easy to keep secrets than say Catholic Church. Yes, it could be more pervasive than what this investigation has revealed, but I still think it is something that’s affected a tiny minority of students over the years (which of course is NOT OK). In 1970s and 1980s, perverts knew what they were doing was wrong for sure, but the school authority might not take things as seriously because of lesser awareness of the gravity of these incidents and potential damage these individuals could bring to the public at large, making it easier to justify their actions of covering up.
Bill Cosby committed crimes in 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s but people are still going after him now.
Some people are not happy because the offending teachers are not punished.
Hadn’t the statute of limitations run out on all these events before the report was written? In some cases the alleged perpetrator was deceased.
I’m sure Choate named the names in part to punish and shame those 12. Some of them are still relatively young–and local–and now will have to live with this being a google search away forever. In addition, a couple of those guys were campus favs for decades, and now that is all done as well. I’m pretty sure they won’t be welcome around the old homestead anymore.
As the OP, the reason why I’ve always looked at CC is for helpful, supportive, pragmatic advice or info about BS. Not debate about if a child should go to BS. When I posted the question if anybody had heard about the Choate news, it was because this school was and still is my kid’s first choice school.
Thank you @itcannotbetrue I appreciate the current info about what your kids are experiencing at Choate. VERY helpful and reassuring to me --no offense, if you disagree with me and if you don’t have a personal stake in this–please start another thread or I can start another thread if need be. I can’t possibly be the only parent of 200+ incoming Choate students looking for info.
(My DS showed me this morning that Choate news is one of the most popular stories trending on Snapchat. It will be interesting to see if their views will shape how this story develops.)
Why the comment about starting another thread? I think all this discussion is good. Looks like your original question was “Did everybody see the Choate sex scandal story?” We’re talking about the story are we not?
“It will be interesting to see if their views will shape how this story develops”
Who’s views?
@doschicos I meant the people who use Snapchat, who I think are mostly younger adults and teens.
My original post was lifted off the waitlisted thread which I had asked because of our recent decision to have DS go to Choate. Not “whether” kid should go to Choate or to BS. In my view, if you are in this part of CC, you’ve already decided that BS is right for your family. There are specifically posts #78 and 80 that say “steer clear” of BS. Then there are the other issues of whether or not Choate is doing the right thing, should be condoned, etc. This fall, 200+ students will be matriculating to Choate and I’m a parent who would like to know what Choate is doing to address this issue w/o having to defend my position to be ok/commend/stand-by Choate’s actions. I guess I will start another thread. Sorry.