Try not to work for a high school…

“Phillips Exeter Deans Failed to Report Sex Assault Case, Police Said” (nytimes)

The case began more than two years ago, when two female seniors, aged 17 and 18, told the deans that a male classmate had groped them against their will, in separate incidents in the basement of the church on the campus in Exeter, N.H.

In a detailed report by the state police that was obtained by The New York Times, an investigator with the major crime unit wrote, “I determined that there was probable cause to believe that” the two deans committed a misdemeanor by not reporting the accusation by the 17-year-old, who was covered by the state’s mandatory reporting law.

What actually happened to the 17- and 18-year-old victims?

The younger accuser said that days before she went to the deans, a popular male senior texted her that it was his 18th birthday, and asked her to meet him in the church basement, a quiet place where students sometimes studied, and which he was assigned to monitor. There, she said, he touched her buttocks and breasts and kissed her, even as she repeatedly told him not to, until she left.

The other accuser recounted a similar incident in the same place with the same male student, who she said put his hands under her shirt and touched her breasts, prompting her to leave.

Several months later, the girl felt unsafe with the male student still on campus, and showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, her faculty adviser told investigators.

[The journalists at the New York Times express no skepticism that teenagers are studying in a church basement rather than in their dorms. They don’t say “What a shame that a wealthy school like Exeter can’t build a library where students can study in a well-lit above-ground environment.”]

Why are the two adult deans busted?

A state law mandates that anyone in a long list of positions, including school officials, “having reason to suspect” sexual abuse of a person under age 18, which it defines very broadly, must report it to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

[i.e., the standard is the same whether it is a 4-year-old child or a 17.9-year-old “child”; note that the age of consent in New Hampshire is 16]

Who won’t ever be able to get a job unless he changes his name?

After the second meeting, the girl went to the police, and prosecutors soon charged the male student, Chukwudi Ikpeazu, with misdemeanor sexual assault. But a year later, in July 2017, as his trial was about to begin, they set aside the charge, and if he meets certain conditions — which have not been made public — prosecutors will drop the case.

$500,000 of private school tuition that can be flushed down the toilet. What university would admit him? If an admissions officer types his name into Google the first page will show “Sex assault charge against ex-Philips Exeter student dropped in last-minute deal”. This article is interesting because the initial idea for settling this without criminal prosecution was that the perpetrator and survivor would meet back at the church where the assault had occurred; the survivor agreed to accept daily fresh-baked bread “for the remainder of the school year,” but reneged on the deal and “eventually reported the incident to Exeter police. So the fact-pattern matches a lot of what went on in Hollywood. Survivors took the cash in exchange for keeping quiet, but ratted out their abusers and didn’t refund the cash.

Of course as someone who has worked as a teacher it is difficult to have sympathy for the deans (our natural enemies). But on the other hand I think this should be a cautionary tale for anyone who had planned to work in a high school. Failure to achieve full regulatory compliance can result in being arrested, something that is unlikely to happen to an employee at a tire shop.