I was sexually abused at Key School
During the 1970s, I was a teenager sexually violated and exploited by adults at the prestigious, private Key School in Annapolis. I was not unique. In fact, there were many of us.
At a time when we were still developing our social and relational identities, we were violated by people whom we depended on in positions of power. Weren’t these people supposed to care for us? And yet, our school did nothing, making it institutionally complicit.
Do young people understand sexual abuse as abuse when it happens? Not always. In an institutional context, they may even think: This is the way it’s supposed to be. We were kids in high school, some even younger. These were teachers and authorities we trusted.
As a student at a party in downtown Annapolis, I recognized teachers from the school. There were drugs. I was given as much alcohol as I wanted, and we all danced into the night. I was 16.
I felt important because I was chosen by important people. No one cared where I was or what I did. I was groomed, seduced and empowered as if I were a grown up brought into the fold. I was shared.
Did I understand how pervasive this behavior really was? Not then.
Betrayal blindness is a survival mechanism to maintain needed relationships with people in power. Young people often respond to sexual abuse by forgetting, distorting or simply not comprehending what’s happened. Blindness, however, can last for years, as it did with me.
The inappropriateness of teachers having sex with students at Key School was not difficult to eventually understand — even within a decade of the experience.
For years, I shoved shame and selfblame to the back of my psychic drawer, not wanting to look back. But then came anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, suicide attempts, relationship issues and more. Blindness, denial and dissociation break a person.
I tried to fix the problem by fixing myself, by going back to school, back to an institutional system that was the source of my trauma. At 62, I earned a Ph.D. It’s no surprise that I chose to teach in the system that houses the most broken members of our society: prison. It has taken years of living in confused pain to see the thread weaving through my story and the stories of others who were violated at Key School. We were preyed upon. Parts of us were destroyed.
Understanding how wrong things were at Key School is not a sudden awakening, but a long, arduous path. The truth comes in increments and is increasingly alarming with each realization. Old narratives crack and fall away — but at great cost. The more I see, the more I grieve. The angrier I become. If we are to rewrite our stories truthfully, we now understand we are not to blame.
When trusted institutions mistreat adults who depend on them, most adults recognize it, and they don’t like it. Sometimes, they take legal action.
We were not adults.
Until recently, we had no legal recourse to hold Key School accountable for its complicit violation, compounding our sexual abuse and institutional betrayal with judicial betrayal. By the time we fully understood and wanted to address what had happened, we were, by law, too old. The law has finally stepped up. Maryland’s new Child Victims Act of 2023 lifted the statute of limitations for sexual abuse cases, giving us full access to justice. Many other states, such as New York, New Jersey and Maine, have also amended their laws to make them accessible to older adults of childhood sexual abuse.
I believe the antidote to institutional betrayal is institutional courage. Not until Key School is held accountable under Maryland’s Child Victims Act, and acknowledges the extent and history of its abuse and betrayal as an institution, will it truly exercise institutional courage.
Understanding how wrong things were at Key School is not a sudden awakening, but a long, arduous path.