PREP SHAME
Emma Willard probe finds staff abuse of girls since ’50s
A PRESTIGIOUS upstate boarding school for girls has released a damning report detailing nearly seven decades of sexual misconduct.
A law firm that the elite Emma Willard School hired interviewed 75 alumnae, each of whom detailed shocking and disturbing accounts of sexual abuse at the Troy institution.
The nearly 100-page report issued Tuesday uncovered instances of sexual harassment, rape and consensual, if inappropriate, relationships that took place at the school over the past 70 years.
The findings confirmed many of the allegations made by former student Kat Sullivan, who said a male teacher raped her on the campus in 1998.
Sullivan reached a legal settlement with the elite school — named for a 19th century women’s rights activist — last year.
In a statement released Tuesday, the school apologized “profoundly to all who have been harmed,” adding it is “committed to the change in our culture, our policies and our curriculum that comes with our awareness of this issue.”
The frank report exposes the disturbing sexual culture that existed at the school.
Relationships between students and teachers were commonplace.
One student who attended the school in the 1950s said she married her math teacher at the age of 16. They divorced after having two children.
A “cult of male teachers” was described as “grooming” students for affairs.
Another graduate described sneaking through hallways to meet up with her female religion teacher for trysts in the school’s chapel in the 1970s.
A 1960s-era instructor — not the religion teacher — was known for groping students’ breasts, with one source dubbing her “fast feels,” according to the report.
Yet another teacher was described as having a “harem,” and an alumna recalled a different married teacher who would fondle her underneath a table while giving his lesson.
“Why did you feel it was OK?” one student asked a teacher years later.
“It was the 1970s,” he told her.
Most of the accounts in the report are old enough to have aged beyond the statute of limitations. While most of those mentioned may not see a trial or jail time, Board Chairwoman Elisabeth Allen LeFort and Interim Head of School Susan Groesbeck said in a letter that changing the school’s culture is extremely important.
“The investigation was undertaken so that we understand, plan and educate about sexual misconduct. We are taking responsibility for the past so that our future is different,” the letter reads.
The school, which counts Jane Fonda and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) as alums, costs $60,000 a year in tuition, room and board.
The report’s release comes on the heels of another well-known boarding school — Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut — unveiling a similar report, also detailing sexual misconduct by faculty.