St. Mike’s alumnus: ‘We need to be better’

ANSWERS SOUGHT IN WAKE OF ALLEGED ASSAULTS

Isaw a St. Mike’s boy on the subway Wednesday; he was just getting out of school, and it was bloody cold, and his school blazer wouldn’t have shown under his winter jacket in any case.

But how sad it is that at one of the country’s most prestigious private boys schools, it has come to this — 1,100 students at St. Michael’s College School have been told they may ditch their blazers when going off school property if they’re afraid of being harassed or embarrassed.

It’s not an unreasonable fear.

Students have been hounded by the media, allegedly even offered money for copies of the notorious video that shows one of their own allegedly being sexually assaulted, and some students reportedly have been called rapists by members of the public.

These are kids are as young as 13 and 14.

It’s an interesting thing that the press and public, in our collective haste to hold someone accountable for what happened, don’t hesitate to act ignobly ourselves.

For the record, Toronto police have charged six grades 9 and 10 students with assault, gang sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon (a broomstick) for their roles in an alleged attack upon a boy earlier this month in a locker-room at the school.

St. Mike’s itself has expelled a total of eight students and suspended a ninth in connection with that incident and two others, less serious. The school has also set up a voice mail for students to report any incidents anonymously and is looking to hire a full-time social worker. All extracurricular activities have been put on hold for the remainder of 2018, with a goal to start up again in the new year.

As well, the board of directors is in the process of finding independent people willing to serve in a “Respect and Culture Review.”

Principal Greg Reeves has had at least two press conferences, as well as given numerous interviews, to discuss his controversial decision to focus on his students rather than call police immediately.

Frankly, it’s difficult to imagine what more the school could do.

As Reeves told an emergency alumni meeting Tuesday night, a student brought the “horrific video” to him in private. The victim of the broomstick attack was ashamed of what had happened to him and had not told his parents.

Reeves thought it “more appropriate to help him (the victim) have those conversations.” He told the alumni he “would do exactly the same thing” again, adding, “And I’ ll take the hit for that.”

Police have this week received two new videos, one allegedly a threat and the other assault with a belt, and are now investigating a total of six alleged incidents, including another reported sexual assault.

Bill Rutsey is a St. Michael’s alumnus (1960-65); with about 500 others, he attended the emergency meeting.

The overwhelming sentiment, he said Wednesday in a telephone interview, was shock and dismay, and that “We need to be better. We’ve got to fix this.”

He also wrote a letter to the National Post the day before the meeting.

In part, he wrote, “I’ve read with sadness the reports of a few past attendees who had bad experiences, which have been conflated to deduce that the school is a cesspool of toxic masculinity and bullying.

“If this is true, I must be an unwitting participant in one of the largest informal conspiracies of silence ever conceived. I attended St. Mike’s more than 50 years ago. Those five years were among the best years of my life.

“I wouldn’t trade one of them for anything,” he wrote.

The mood of that meeting, which was open only to alumni, seems to have been just about right: There was no shrinking away from the horror of what had happened, only concern that the school make it as right as is possible.

People were aghast by the allegations, Rutsey said, him included. But they are, he said, a repudiation of the school’s ethics and tradition, not emblematic of them.

There were alumni who were angry, a small number of them, at how principal Reeves handled the crisis, and who demanded his resignation.

(The board of directors Wednesday issued a brief statement, saying in part that Reeves has their full support.)

But of the 50 or so who took to the microphones to speak or ask questions, there were perhaps three on this side of the equation.

One of the last to speak was a young man who had been bullied badly while at St. Mike’s.

“It was awful,” Rutsey said, “he left the school, he felt so bad.” The young man named a friend who had stuck up for him and made his life tolerable, who “was what a St. Mike’s man should be.”

That man was in attendance, too.

The man who was bullied had driven nine hours from the United States, where he now lives.

The room fell silent, shaken, as he spoke.

Afterwards, the former principal during the young man’s time there apologized to him. A half dozen others, Rutsey included, privately thanked him for having had the guts to speak.

“The collective sense is somehow we failed, we failed to understand something going on here, and we’ve got to fix this,” Rutsey said. “We failed these kids, not only the ones assaulted, we failed the people who did this and thought it was appropriate.”

But, as he said, “We’ve got nothing to hide, and the last thing in the world we want is to appear to be hiding something.”

It is perhaps the most telling thing that two of the alleged victims felt wanted and welcome and, in the modern vernacular, safe enough to return to St. Mike’s last week.

A third came back this week.

The fourth is still speaking to police.

I hope the next time I see a St. Mike’s boy on the subway, he’s wearing his blazer.