can i sue?
Posted: 2004-02-09 07:30:00
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This is a serious inquiry.
I want to know if there is any hope of settling a lawsuit against CEDU school.
I am not a money-grubber, just a concerned ex-student who wants to see CEDU take it where it hurts, their wallet.
Let me explain.
I attended CEDU high school, California for nearly three years.
The years in question were 1995-1997.
During that time, I experience uncountable atrocities, abuses and brainwashings.
I completed the full program, including every single profeet they have to offer, finishing with their week-long summit workshop.
I graduated their program thanks to having a stubborn mother who ignored my constant tearful pleas to remove me from the program. She was under advisement from the staff to ignore all my requests, and dismiss my claims as lies. She continued to do so even after I advanced in the program and was no longer monitored on phone calls. She was lied to. Even today, when I tell her that everything I ever told her was true, and that I have nothing to gain by telling her that now, she goes white-faced and silent and tells me she does not want to talk about it.
During my stay at CEDU, I was placed on a "table restriction" for an entire month. This remains the longest restriction I have ever known anyone to have been on. I sat on a hard wooden bench, no cushioning, in the dining room to face the ridicule of my peers. Every night I got the hardest, dirtiest, nastiest washroom jobs possible. By day I labored in freezing conditions, clearing a "nature trail" a good four miles of deep woods trail blanketed by two feet of solid snow and ice. I did this even though it was the dead of winter and no one bothered to go on the trail. On another "work assignment", I dug a rain-trench and hauled rocks across campus by wheelbarrow (saving the school contracting fees to get it done professionally) in the hot summer sun while "good" kids got to lay on blankets on the grass, play guitar and eat candy and watch me work. To add insult to injury, while I walked by counselors would lean over the balcony and yell at me to move faster while kids laughed, watching me try to run with a wheelbarrow full of rocks. I hauled buckets of them to landscape a tiny, dirt-filled pavilion observable when walking into the dining hall, in preparation for parent visits, to help make things pretty. During this assignment I dislocated my wrist, and for weeks was unable to even lift my notebook for school. This did not stop them. Collapsing into bed that first night after dislocation, I was awake all night crying because I thought my wrist was broken. They ridiculed me when I reported it, refusing to stop making me work, also refusing me pain medication (thought I might like it, maybe)
During sporting events, I was forced into a swimming pool on a rainy, forty degree day. The water was so cold my leg cramped up and I couldn't walk without a limp for months. In fact for up to a year afterward, whenever I went for a walk the pain would return. Nevertheless, they continued to force me to train for their wilderness trip. "Training" consisted of forcibly running three miles, three times a week plus sprinting in the parking lot and up a seventy degree angled hill (the hill to the "non potable water supply" cedu students will know what I mean). The trip itself was two weeks of hell. I was forced to hike no less than ten miles a day for the first week. At the end of the first day, due to equipment malfunction, (cheap thirty year old frame packs can't distribute weight well) I reported that my feet were masses of blisters. I was told "pad em up, move em out", and had to walk on them while they burst unter my weight, causing excruciating pain. It felt like walking on hot coals all day. I was not allowed to rest them, let alone stop the trip. One of my friends accidentally spilled boiling water on his leg, causing second degree burns. He was not allowed to leave the trip either, let alone have the injuries medically treated. Within a couple days, his blistered legs were draining a large amount of foul-smelling, pus-like discharge. He still went untreated, having to clean the wounds in dirty, parasite-filled streams which we couldn't even drink without chemically treating. Staff did not care. Another trip I wasn't on had their packs mauled by bears in the night who ate most of their already meager food. During my four days of forced isolation on the trip, I was given water, a bag of granola and two cereal bars a day. I was not allowed to take any other food. I slept on the ground under a tarp with no sides, despite nearly stepping on a rattlesnake two days earlier. We were so deep in the wilderness that I observed a wild wolf drink from the stream a few feet from where I sat. A full-grown bear charged down the hill ten feet away from me, chasing what I never knew. Thank god he didn't see me, or I would be another casualty. I was later told we were constantly monitored by counselors, but I never saw them.
Due to my alleged noncompliance with the program, I had to repeat this wilderness event two more times. Most students only do it once, and consider it the hardest thing they ever do. I did it three times. At the end of each time, I had to complete a nine mile run on the desert sun with no rest stops. The third trip I refused, due to the masses of blisters on my feet. Returning to school, I had a table restriction waiting. On my longest restriction, I completed at least a hundred full pages, front and back, of "writing assignment", intense personal information that I had to leave on my table at all times. Several times I would return from work assignments to find untrained staff or students reading them without my permission. If the counselors thought they weren't personal enough, they would tear them out and throw them away and make me rewrite them. During raps I was screamed at in front of other students about my personal issues by both counselors and students. In fact, untrained, unschooled student peers were regularly allowed to assist in working with other students on emotional growth issues. To encourage this, students would get punished, by which I mean more work, if they did not confront at least two students per rap on meaningful issues during the first few months of stay.
Also because of my so-called noncompliance, which really meant I observed no signs of brainwashing yet, having not learned to do everything everyone told me without question, I was dropped not one but two peer groups, each time extending my potential stay by six months. I would have had to watch my friends graduate without me, but there were so many runaways that they had to combine all three peer groups into one just to have enough to keep them going. I was told they would keep doing this until I complied. When I observed that I would eventually become 18 and be allowed to leave, they countered that they would get my mom to sign a paper saying I was incompetent to be a legal adult. I don't even know if this is possible, but by then was so mentally exhausted I believed it. I was verbally abused, sworn at, physically threatened. Phone calls were monitored in case I told my parents what was really going on, and limited to fifteen minutes every two weeks. Letters were read before sent, and only allowed if they met standards, which meant they could not contain pleas to leave. This would be considered not working with the program. Incoming letters were opened without permission and read before I ever recieved them, any offending material removed. If any gifts were sent by sympathetic family members, they were confiscated and kept by staff. Letters were restricted to family members only. Sex was not allowed, smoking was not allowed, even by 18 year old adults. Nearly all forms of music were banned. Even naming a restricted band resulted in punishment. Severe dress codes were in effect, banning logos, any clothes with words on them, the color black, baggy clothes, suggestive clothes, jewelry, long hair in boys, hair dye, sideburns were limited, buzz-cuts, mohawks, shaved heads, all banned. Students recieved punishments for untucked shirts, unparted hair. This was supposed to mbe to help keep the focus on emotional growth and to not hide behind an image, but was just an exercise in conformity, to forcing kids to adapt to the counselors demands. Speech patterns, suspicious nicknames, hand gestures, anything that couold be consedered image-driven, was banned. I was once banned from the library because rather than spend time moitoring other students for signs of dissent, I liked to read. Alone. I was banned from being alone. To discourage revolt. students were routinrly banned specifically from anyone they formed a close friendship with. Any restriction (table, couch, pit, wherever) was met with automatic bans from younger levels of students who might be les brainwashed. I was once accused of excessive masturbating, and forced to ask an older student or staff's permission to escort me to the bathroom and monitor my activity. The reason for this was because I spent a lot of time in the bathroom in order to just be alone. I was ridiculed, known thereafter by my peers as the "bathroom escort masturbator". We were contstantly punished if we ate more than a small amount of food, being accused of not letting others have their share, or "scarcity". If found guilty, plates would have to pass staff inspection. All the students were very thin, which was good for parents who liked to see improving body images, and mistook starvation for health. On parent visits, cooks would prepare more expenive and better quality food to promote the illuson we were eating well. On one occasion the entire school got food poisoning and spent two days suffering from uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea, often at the same time, as well as severe dehydration to the point of delirium. I personally remember speding the night crying and confused, my entire dorm (and every other) literally taking turns in the bathroom puking and shitting. At one point I passed out on the toilet and had to be awakened by a roommate who needed the bathroom. My roommated would talk to themelves, laugh at nothing and sing songs at the top of their lungs all night. I remember discovering that my blanket was all balled up and crying out loud because in my confusion I did not know how to straighten it out. I could hear crying coming from other dorms. I know I cried out loud a lot of times. Immediately after supper that first night,the first one to get sick went to the doctor. When the doctor suspected the cause might be a food-borne organism, the student was returned to school. No further students were permitted to seek medical attention, even though 95% got life-threateningly sick. I could not keep down fluid, I just kept throwing it back up again. I should have gotten an IV, but they wouldn't allow it. To this day I am amazed no one died. The next morning, staff told everyone NOT TO DRINK THE WATER!! I remember crying because I wanted water so badly. The staff insisted that the illness was in the water, and no one was to drink it. They said a truck was to come with bottle water. It never did. I was given one can of seven-up, which I could not keep down. Most students were too weak to get out of bed. Still, staff continued to insist it was "something in the water", and that we were to tell that to our parents if they asked. In a couple of days, they declared the water "treated" and forgot the incident. No one ever came to investigate our water supply, which came from an isolated tank on campus and could have been easily tested. It wasn't. I know this because we were forced to limit out showers to five minutes per person per day, on grounds that we might deplete the water supply. Not taking one shower a day was grounds for punishment also. In addition to all these rules and restrictions, staff could make up new ones on a whim. One staff placed a student on work assignments for asking if he was gay. Another put a kid on a whole week of dishes for "disagreeing". Parents would come up on designated days for the whole school, or had to request a visit in advance so the pleace could be "prepared" for them. Events never offered otherwise were trotted out for parents. Counselors would smile and mess up students hair.
It was sickening. The parents would go through their own profeets, except they would take place in comfy resort hotels. I had the opportunity to observe a part of one on one occasion. It was nothing more than a baby meditation exercise where the parents "went back to childhood" together and were told everything was okay. Then they gave each other hugs. They didn't even have to experience sleep deprivation. Yet they were told that they too had experienced the profeet, so they could see what we went through and get to bond about it with us. On the other hand, we were told that if we thought we were going to fall asleep, we should stand behind our chairs to stay awake all night. Same thing? You decide.
All of this and so much more it would take a whole book to write it all happened directly to me. These are not just stories. The stories I heard, about CEDU, Ascent, RMA, Suws and other such places could fill a book of their own, but I can't account for their validity. These things I wrote about I can, because I experienced them personally.
So does anyone here think I have grounds to sue the school, or do you think they have some kind of legal loopholes in place to avoid it. See, even now I am still paranoid that they'll get the upper hand. For months after I graduated, I suffered nightly nightmares that I had been enrolled again, or had to start over. I woke from those sweating and in terror. I understood what vietnam vets mean by flashback. The whole thing felt like POW camp. If you ran away, they sent private escorts after you to track you down, cuff you and bring you back. One kid made it to Germany and was still found. Others disappeared and their parents never heard from them again. IF they were 18, their parents were encouraged to disown them and not support them in any way. I saw several parents tell their kid to their face they would do this.
If anyone knows anything about suing, wants to, is trying, has tried, please let me know.
If anyone remembers any of these incidents, or has stories from CEDU or other schools, let me know. I am writing a book on the subject and may include other people's stories.
If anyone just wants to commiserate, I am available.
My e-mail is
[email protected] P.S. to Mark Waitt, Alyx Thorson, Joe Csapo and Anthony Musso- if you are alive and read this, please write me. They never let me contact you.
Jake Hallam
survivor
R.I.P. Heather Woods
