Justice delayed, not denied

New York and Connecticut are neighboring states. Yet in the way they allow people victimized as children to pursue their abusers, they are far apart. An exhaustive report by an elite Connecticut boarding school helps explain why. The examination by an investigator working for the board of trustees at Choate Rosemary Hall detailed decades of sexual misconduct by faculty and staff.

Going back more than five decades, it names a dozen former educators who engaged in a broad range of sexual misconduct, including rape.

Nothing was reported to police. In some cases, school administrators let perps slide by with glowing recommendations — enabling them to find soft landings at other schools.

All of which gives victims potential grounds, even all these years later, for seeking justice in civil courts. They can do that in Connecticut, which has a statute of limitations of 30 years after a victim turns 18 to seek redress.

It took Cheyenne Montgomery — who alleges abuse by two different Choate faculty members prior to her 1992 graduation — years to gain the courage to face what had happened to her, and longer to get the school to own up to its responsibility. She has since been able to settle all claims. In New York, where minors have only until age 23 to pursue criminal or civil charges against a perpetrator or institution, the chance for a legal reckoning often comes and goes before a victim has the maturity or courage to seek redress.

Yes, the Archdiocese of New York has opened a fund that is offering private settlements to past victims of clergy abuse. That’s commendable.

But the statute of limitations must change — in law, and for all victims of abuse.