Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Hyde Schools => Topic started by: Hydemom on August 27, 2007, 10:25:38 AM
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 1:01 am Post subject: Honor
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My name is Weston M. Price
I attended Hyde school (Bath) roughly during the years of 1987-1988. I never finished, I was a discipline problem and never quite cared for any of the staff. In my time at Hyde I saw, or participated in:
Seeing a student (Stuart Grenik sp(?)) being struck by Joseph Gauld Sr (I was not the only one witness to this)
A sexual relationship with a teacher (with me)
My parents being paid off by Hyde to not press charges in regards to certain violations (see aforementioned relationship).
There is no substitute for evidence, facts, and actual testimony. Having been at Hyde for probably the worst time in it's history, I can attest to quite a few things regarding the school, it's founder, it's history, it's 'unique potential'.
Note, oddly enough. I am also a survivor of Straight Inc (Atlanta chapter).
Questions?
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Yes, I have a question. What would you call a Character Based School who has every opportunity to avoid a lawsuit by simply keeping the pedophile away from the victims yet refuses to do so? I call this plain STUPIDITY, don't you?
I am the parent of a girl who was sexually fondled by a staff member with the initials LD. Although Hyde would like you to believe that some lunatic parent made up a story about their daughter being molested by LD, this is not so! It's called "DENIAL" Hyde, when one wants to pretend something didn't happen in order to live with ones self.
LD did sexually fondle my daughter. The only reason we did not file criminal charges was because the attorney explained that our daughter would be put through more than she could handle going through a criminal trial. It was explained that she would be re traumatized. LD should consider himself lucky.
I asked over a six month period that LD not be allowed on campus. Hyde would not agree to this no matter how hard I pleaded. Their stance was that because LD was a parent at Hyde, (he was asked to resign from staff after we pursued this) he had every right to be on campus for his daughters activities, parent weekends, seminars, and the like. As far as I was concerned, this not only gave him an opportunity to sexually harass other female students, it re traumatized my daughter by seeing him, as well as sent a very poor message to the other students about what kind of behavior would be tolerated on campus. After our many pleadings fell on deaf ears, we filed a lawsuit under Title IX.
When confronting Malcolm by phone and asking how he would like it if it had happened to his daughter, his response was, "my daughter could handle it." Geez Louise, poor thing. I hope she never has to go through something like our daughter. I am still waiting for Malcolm's apology and explanation for such a stupid remark. Also pretty sad that a head of a school would take this type of attitude. Hyde was however kind enough to offer that our daughter should move to the other campus. I guess this is how they offer assistance to a victim. Let the perpetrator stay where he is and enjoy his life in paid campus housing, and send the victim off to another place where she will feel even more isolated, not have any friends, etc.
In my estimation the whole sick culture at Hyde is pathetic, but I guess wherever there are desperate parents, there will be places like Hyde. Good luck to all of you. If you have any questions I would be happy to answer them. I also would be happy to speak to any incoming parents who might like to know more about Hyde.
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When confronting Malcolm by phone and asking how he would like it if it had happened to his daughter, his response was, "my daughter could handle it."
The implication seems to be that your daughter couldn't handle it. What's there to handle? I am sure most parents will be very pleased to hear that for that $40,000 they shell out to Hyde, their daughter will be less protected from sexual predators than if she walked down the main block in the combat zone butt naked.
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When confronting Malcolm by phone and asking how he would like it if it had happened to his daughter, his response was, "my daughter could handle it."
The implication seems to be that your daughter couldn't handle it. What's there to handle? I am sure most parents will be very pleased to hear that for that $40,000 they shell out to Hyde, their daughter will be less protected from sexual predators than if she walked down the main block in the combat zone butt naked.
Another thought comes to mind, namely just how Laura Denton (Malcolm's wife) chose to "handle it" in the past. She got married to Malcolm! :rofl:
Perhaps Hyde School had something along those lines lined up for your daughter! Well, woman, you may have just missed a golden opportunity, ha ha ha!!
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When confronting Malcolm by phone and asking how he would like it if it had happened to his daughter, his response was, "my daughter could handle it."
The implication seems to be that your daughter couldn't handle it. What's there to handle? I am sure most parents will be very pleased to hear that for that $40,000 they shell out to Hyde, their daughter will be less protected from sexual predators than if she walked down the main block in the combat zone butt naked.
Another thought comes to mind, namely just how Laura Denton (Malcolm's wife) chose to "handle it" in the past. She got married to Malcolm! :rofl:
Perhaps Hyde School had something along those lines lined up for your daughter! Well, woman, you may have just missed a golden opportunity, ha ha ha!!
I appreciate that you have a sense of humor but there is NOTHING humorous about a young girl trusting an older man in a position of authority, who was supposed to protect her, only to then have him fondle her and rape her of her trust in authority.
There was much more to this story.....what they put our daughter through, how they interogated her without us being informed of the crime, how they NEVER offered counseling, etc. For a school that is supposed to be based on "Concern" and "Integrity" they certainly didn't show any!
This is the past and we have moved on, but seeing this other person talk about sexual abuse I felt compelled to inform you that there are many more cases of the same at Hyde. Any parent who reads this website and still decides to send their kid to Hyde, must be nuts!
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Hyde mom,
I agree. Nothing funny about it. It is pure blame the victim right out of the Catholic Church play book. The chickens will come home to roost some day, they always do. Hyde will toss a parent out on their ear over simple disagreements but will embrace a sycophant guilty of moral and criminal transgressions. It makes all the character BS exactly that. BS. They talk the talk but can't walk the walk.
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I have to say that my sense of humor as per Hyde's sexual peccadilloes (peck o' dildos?) has become increasingly cynical and sarcastic over the years as I begun to hear more and more, and I apologize if I have offended you with that. I certainly was not trying to trivialize the matter. Truly, I think we are seeing the tip of the iceberg.
I think we are just now beginning to hear the stories from long ago. The stories from not so long ago might have to take more time; at least we know about Dubinsky. I think it takes a long time before people can process this to the point where they go public with it.
But this is how Hyde gets away with it. The code of secrecy brought about by shame, the brainwashing that the kids' themselves are actually responsible for this, the guilt... And the impression that you are the only one. Time passes and you discover differently, but then it seems too late to make the school accountable to the public. Maybe not.
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I just read about your case over at ISAC yesterday, did you win the suit?
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I just read about your case over at ISAC yesterday, did you win the suit?
Are you talking about Dubinsky? I believe they went all the way up to picking a jury, but then settled out of court.
These cases always get settled out of court. The kids and parents are made to feel that this was a rare and will-never-happen-again event. But it has been happening, again and again, for over 30 friggin' years!!
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Hyde mom,
I agree. Nothing funny about it. It is pure blame the victim right out of the Catholic Church play book. The chickens will come home to roost some day, they always do. Hyde will toss a parent out on their ear over simple disagreements but will embrace a sycophant guilty of moral and criminal transgressions. It makes all the character BS exactly that. BS. They talk the talk but can't walk the walk.
The difference between the Catholic Church and Hyde is that the Catholic Church has humbled themselves and are making sure this doesn't happen again. Hyde stood behind LD and when they finally made a statement it was, "LD will be taking a little time off to look at his life."
There was no doubt that the "concern" was about LD, not the victim.
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Hyde mom,
I agree. Nothing funny about it. It is pure blame the victim right out of the Catholic Church play book. The chickens will come home to roost some day, they always do. Hyde will toss a parent out on their ear over simple disagreements but will embrace a sycophant guilty of moral and criminal transgressions. It makes all the character BS exactly that. BS. They talk the talk but can't walk the walk.
The difference between the Catholic Church and Hyde is that the Catholic Church has humbled themselves and are making sure this doesn't happen again. Hyde stood behind LD and when they finally made a statement it was, "LD will be taking a little time off to look at his life."
There was no doubt that the "concern" was about LD, not the victim.
It is part of the Hyde ethos. You are responsible for your experience at Hyde. If Hyde does not work for you it is because you did not commit to the process. So if you are sexually harassed at Hyde it is because you allowed it to happen.
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Hyde mom,
I agree. Nothing funny about it. It is pure blame the victim right out of the Catholic Church play book. The chickens will come home to roost some day, they always do. Hyde will toss a parent out on their ear over simple disagreements but will embrace a sycophant guilty of moral and criminal transgressions. It makes all the character BS exactly that. BS. They talk the talk but can't walk the walk.
The difference between the Catholic Church and Hyde is that the Catholic Church has humbled themselves and are making sure this doesn't happen again. Hyde stood behind LD and when they finally made a statement it was, "LD will be taking a little time off to look at his life."
There was no doubt that the "concern" was about LD, not the victim.
There's nothing really different. The Catholic Church has been anything but humble regarding this and have taken the least amount of responsibiltiy that they possibly could. Where's Cardinal Law right now?
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Hyde mom,
I agree. Nothing funny about it. It is pure blame the victim right out of the Catholic Church play book. The chickens will come home to roost some day, they always do. Hyde will toss a parent out on their ear over simple disagreements but will embrace a sycophant guilty of moral and criminal transgressions. It makes all the character BS exactly that. BS. They talk the talk but can't walk the walk.
The difference between the Catholic Church and Hyde is that the Catholic Church has humbled themselves and are making sure this doesn't happen again. Hyde stood behind LD and when they finally made a statement it was, "LD will be taking a little time off to look at his life."
There was no doubt that the "concern" was about LD, not the victim.
It is part of the Hyde ethos. You are responsible for your experience at Hyde. If Hyde does not work for you it is because you did not commit to the process. So if you are sexually harassed at Hyde it is because you allowed it to happen.
Very interesting that you say this. When LD enjoyed himself rubbing his body all over my daughter she complained to Ken Grant who then called her into a meeting with LD, (without my knowledge) along with other adult staff. She was made to confront him in front of all. MY GOD, this was a sexual assault and they want a young teenage girl to be in the same room as the perpetrator to "confront" him?? Sorry, but this goes beyond sick!! Every single one of those staff who participated in this and knew it was wrong needs to look at themselves and ask why they were such cowards. I am referring to the non family members who were upset yet kept silent.
Someone asked if we won the case. The case was going to trial in Ct Federal Court. The jury was selected. Hyde then settled right before.
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It is part of the Hyde ethos. You are responsible for your experience at Hyde. If Hyde does not work for you it is because you did not commit to the process. So if you are sexually harassed at Hyde it is because you allowed it to happen.
Very interesting that you say this. When LD enjoyed himself rubbing his body all over my daughter she complained to Ken Grant who then called her into a meeting with LD, (without my knowledge) along with other adult staff. She was made to confront him in front of all. MY GOD, this was a sexual assault and they want a young teenage girl to be in the same room as the perpetrator to "confront" him?? Sorry, but this goes beyond sick!! Every single one of those staff who participated in this and knew it was wrong needs to look at themselves and ask why they were such cowards. I am referring to the non family members who were upset yet kept silent.
This picture is achingly similar to the picture of Hyde School thinking there was nothing wrong with assembling the student body for butt naked fat measurements.
Point is, Hyde thinks there is nothing wrong with this.
And it doesn't matter that the rest of the world thinks there is something wrong with this, cuz the rest of the world is in a piss-poor position to judge character. Character being, of course, what Hyde is the expert at.
Remember, Joe said "leave the character judgments to us, we are in a better position to judge than parents are" (paraphrase; emphasis added).
The fact that they think there is nothing wrong with these kinds of things reflects a very sick, conservative, and paternalistic outlook. The bottom of that barrel has yet to be scraped.
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Very interesting that you say this. When LD enjoyed himself rubbing his body all over my daughter she complained to Ken Grant who then called her into a meeting with LD, (without my knowledge) along with other adult staff. She was made to confront him in front of all. MY GOD, this was a sexual assault and they want a young teenage girl to be in the same room as the perpetrator to "confront" him?? Sorry, but this goes beyond sick!! Every single one of those staff who participated in this and knew it was wrong needs to look at themselves and ask why they were such cowards. I am referring to the non family members who were upset yet kept silent.
Yep, common practice amongst cults. When I was in Straight I did talk to one person about being sexually abused as a kid. It got back to staff that I had "admitted" this (that was the term they used) and I was summoned to an 'executive meeting'. "Dr." Newton and his bitch wife Ruth Ann grilled me about what happened in front of a few male staffers. Ruth Ann berated me to "accept my responsibility" for what happened. I was SEVEN. (when the sexual abuse happened, not when I was in Straight, wanted to be clear on that)
They're not going to "look at themselves", are you kidding? They don't give a shit. Sad but true.
Someone asked if we won the case. The case was going to trial in Ct Federal Court. The jury was selected. Hyde then settled right before.
I think I remember talking to you before. How was Hyde in a position to settle? Who were the parties to the suit?
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They're not going to "look at themselves", are you kidding? They don't give a shit. Sad but true.
Yup. They roll their eyes. It's the subject of jokes.
I'm sure it's brought up in faculty meetings, "Whatever you do, don't post on fornits so they don't know you're reading it." And then, every once in a while, a newbie faculty member, duly indoctrinated but a bit hazy on the rules, posts anyway, "This is a cesspool!"
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
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Yup. They roll their eyes. It's the subject of jokes.
I'm sure it's brought up in faculty meetings, "Whatever you do, don't post on fornits so they don't know you're reading it." And then, every once in a while, a newbie faculty member, duly indoctrinated but a bit hazy on the rules, posts anyway, "This is a cesspool!"
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
My favorite is when they come on and call us a bunch of losers and tell us that we're irrelevant and no one pays attention to us. But then, you go onto their websites and get a kick out of how much they change it according to what's posted here. They're reading and replying alright, they just reply on their own site instead of here.
HLA was notorious for sending ringers in (they thought we didn't know :rofl: ) and try and deflect the conversation that was going on about the lack of qualifications of their staff and outright falsehoods in their advertising. But, lo and behold, the website and bios of the staff began to change. It was hysterical!! Say it here, it comes out there.
::roflmao::
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It is part of the Hyde ethos. You are responsible for your experience at Hyde. If Hyde does not work for you it is because you did not commit to the process. So if you are sexually harassed at Hyde it is because you allowed it to happen.
Very interesting that you say this. When LD enjoyed himself rubbing his body all over my daughter she complained to Ken Grant who then called her into a meeting with LD, (without my knowledge) along with other adult staff. She was made to confront him in front of all. MY GOD, this was a sexual assault and they want a young teenage girl to be in the same room as the perpetrator to "confront" him?? Sorry, but this goes beyond sick!! Every single one of those staff who participated in this and knew it was wrong needs to look at themselves and ask why they were such cowards. I am referring to the non family members who were upset yet kept silent.
This picture is achingly similar to the picture of Hyde School thinking there was nothing wrong with assembling the student body for butt naked fat measurements.
Point is, Hyde thinks there is nothing wrong with this.
And it doesn't matter that the rest of the world thinks there is something wrong with this, cuz the rest of the world is in a piss-poor position to judge character. Character being, of course, what Hyde is the expert at.
Remember, Joe said "leave the character judgments to us, we are in a better position to judge than parents are" (paraphrase; emphasis added).
The fact that they think there is nothing wrong with these kinds of things reflects a very sick, conservative, and paternalistic outlook. The bottom of that barrel has yet to be scraped.
conservative
I have friends that are both socially and politically conservative. I don't think they would condone what Hyde has done in this case. As a matter of fact one guy I work with says you should keep guys like LD out of the criminal justice system all together and just take them deer hunting:
"Hey Larry you circle 'round through the woods and drive the deer back to us."
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Tell me about it! One thing I really noticed about the Hyde site is that they put most of it under 'https' so you can't get on and read most of it without being tracked and logged up the wazzoo. They REALLY want to know who is visiting and probably try to sync up posts which contain material from their site with visits to the respective sites referred to. Those suckers are paranoid for a reason!!!
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Well, Bro, being 'conservative' is not necessarily the same thing as being 'sick,' although there are those amongst us who might like to word it that way. But the kind of 'sick' that Hyde is is a 'conservative sick.' Maybe I should have tried to word it that way, but I was afraid to run the risk of sounding like a lisping idiot.
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...just take them deer hunting:
"Hey Larry you circle 'round through the woods and drive the deer back to us."
I'd like to take that guy out deer hunting and shoot his nuts off with a BB gun, but I'd probably miss. Target's too small.
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When LD enjoyed himself rubbing his body all over my daughter she complained to Ken Grant who then called her into a meeting with LD, (without my knowledge) along with other adult staff.
sounds kinda like she was sexaully assaulted all over again, pyschologically that is.
dont tell me those staff were all men. that would make it real like that thurel case, no?
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When LD enjoyed himself rubbing his body all over my daughter she complained to Ken Grant who then called her into a meeting with LD, (without my knowledge) along with other adult staff.
sounds kinda like she was sexaully assaulted all over again, pyschologically that is.
dont tell me those staff were all men. that would make it real like that thurel case, no?
There were male and female staff in this meeting. My daughter told me it was the most humiliating thing she was ever forced to do. She was having trouble being in the same room as the creep teacher, (LD) who fondled her, so was looking the other way. Judy Fortier, a former Hyde Mom and staffer told her, "xxxxx, you need to look at LD when you talk to him." Ken Grant also told her that she needed to confront LD and let him know how uncomfortable he made her feel.
The fact that these misguided, ignoramus, mentally impaired fools who run Hyde School would think it is normal or therapuetic to put a child (victim) through this says it all!!
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It is part of the Hyde ethos. You are responsible for your experience at Hyde. If Hyde does not work for you it is because you did not commit to the process. So if you are sexually harassed at Hyde it is because you allowed it to happen.
Very interesting that you say this. When LD enjoyed himself rubbing his body all over my daughter she complained to Ken Grant who then called her into a meeting with LD, (without my knowledge) along with other adult staff. She was made to confront him in front of all. MY GOD, this was a sexual assault and they want a young teenage girl to be in the same room as the perpetrator to "confront" him?? Sorry, but this goes beyond sick!! Every single one of those staff who participated in this and knew it was wrong needs to look at themselves and ask why they were such cowards. I am referring to the non family members who were upset yet kept silent.
This picture is achingly similar to the picture of Hyde School thinking there was nothing wrong with assembling the student body for butt naked fat measurements.
Point is, Hyde thinks there is nothing wrong with this.
And it doesn't matter that the rest of the world thinks there is something wrong with this, cuz the rest of the world is in a piss-poor position to judge character. Character being, of course, what Hyde is the expert at.
Remember, Joe said "leave the character judgments to us, we are in a better position to judge than parents are" (paraphrase; emphasis added).
The fact that they think there is nothing wrong with these kinds of things reflects a very sick, conservative, and paternalistic outlook. The bottom of that barrel has yet to be scraped.
"I love kids. I can't resist little ones. We often knowingly catch each other's eye, on an airplane or while standing in line."
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There were male and female staff in this meeting. My daughter told me it was the most humiliating thing she was ever forced to do. She was having trouble being in the same room as the creep teacher, (LD) who fondled her, so was looking the other way. Judy Fortier, a former Hyde Mom and staffer told her, "xxxxx, you need to look at LD when you talk to him." Ken Grant also told her that she needed to confront LD and let him know how uncomfortable he made her feel.
The fact that these misguided, ignoramus, mentally impaired fools who run Hyde School would think it is normal or therapuetic to put a child (victim) through this says it all!!
Humiliation is good for the soul. Trust me, had you kept your parental meddling out of this, we could have made a man out of your daughter yet!
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The fact that these misguided, ignoramus, mentally impaired fools who run Hyde School would think it is normal or therapuetic to put a child (victim) through this says it all!!
"misguided" - the important thing is that we CARE
"ignoramus" - I have always said, character over academics. Let me tell you a story about two boys, one smart, one dumb...
"mentally impaired" - hey, don't hold the fact that Blanche and I were soused out of our gourds throughout most of my kids' childhoods against me! Remember, I CARE! Oh, and FAS?... its a myth!
Therapy is what you make it. Maybe your daughter couldnt handle it. We don't need any professionals. We care about our Hyde kids. Especially the ones we can convince into coming back and teaching for $15k/year...
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:rofl: :rofl:
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There were male and female staff in this meeting. My daughter told me it was the most humiliating thing she was ever forced to do. She was having trouble being in the same room as the creep teacher, (LD) who fondled her, so was looking the other way. Judy Fortier, a former Hyde Mom and staffer told her, "xxxxx, you need to look at LD when you talk to him." Ken Grant also told her that she needed to confront LD and let him know how uncomfortable he made her feel.
The fact that these misguided, ignoramus, mentally impaired fools who run Hyde School would think it is normal or therapuetic to put a child (victim) through this says it all!!
Okay, from what I understand Hyde called this meeting, let's call it the "victim is expected to confront assailant" meeting, and from what I've read thus far plus other information which I will not go into, this is not exactly a meeting that the victim wanted, in fact, the victim has said "it was the most humiliating thing she was ever forced to do."
[li] Diddler Dubinsky, accused of sexual assault;[/li]
[li] Ken Grant, heavy honcho school official, doesn't want the school to be held liable, friend of Diddler and Diddler's wife;[/li]
[li] Judy Fortier, Hyde staff and sycophant, friend of Claire and Ken Grant, friend of Diddler and Diddler's wife, husband also used to work at Hyde but allegedly left "because of a pronounced proclivity to ogle undergrads;"[/li]
[li] unidentified male Hyde staff #1, Hyde apologist whether he wants to be or not;[/li]
[li] unidentified male Hyde staff #2, Hyde apologist whether he wants to be or not;[/li]
[li] perhaps others.[/li][/list]
[li] victim, underage, family is far away and has not been informed.[/li][/list]
Ummm... something seems a bit OFF about this picture. Two things rear up in my mind, other than the incredibly disparate blocks of personnel (just squint your eyes and look at that screen).
Why weren't the parents informed
immediately when the original complaints were aired, not to mention by the time this meeting took place (from what I've heard, there was even a second meeting like the above before they deigned to get around to it)?
Why isn't there an advocate for this girl present, even an informal one, a teacher or confidante of her own choosing, preferable someone outside of the school with no hidden agenda?[/list]
What exactly was Hyde trying to accomplish by intimidating and humiliating this girl who had just been sexually assaulted by one of the participants?
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Addendum, Aug. 29, 2007: I knew I had remembered seeing Judy Fortiere's name somewhere. I went back and re-read Gary's ISAC document. She start's being mentioned about a little more than a third of the way through. For greater ease of reading as well as for the greater good of everyone, I have copied this document onto fornits with its own thread. Links for downloading and source are provided therein. Many thanks, Gary!
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=23004 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=23004)
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There were male and female staff in this meeting. My daughter told me it was the most humiliating thing she was ever forced to do. She was having trouble being in the same room as the creep teacher, (LD) who fondled her, so was looking the other way. Judy Fortier, a former Hyde Mom and staffer told her, "xxxxx, you need to look at LD when you talk to him." Ken Grant also told her that she needed to confront LD and let him know how uncomfortable he made her feel.
The fact that these misguided, ignoramus, mentally impaired fools who run Hyde School would think it is normal or therapuetic to put a child (victim) through this says it all!!
Okay, from what I understand Hyde called this meeting, let's call it the "victim is expected to confront assailant" meeting, and from what I've read thus far plus other information which I will not go into, this is not exactly a meeting that the victim wanted, in fact, the victim has said "it was the most humiliating thing she was ever forced to do."
[li] Diddler Dubinsky, accused of sexual assault;[/li]
[li] Ken Grant, heavy honcho school official, doesn't want the school to be held liable, friend of Diddler and Diddler's wife;[/li]
[li] Judy Fortier, Hyde staff and sycophant, friend of Claire and Ken Grant, friend of Diddler and Diddler's wife, husband also used to work at Hyde but allegedly left "because of a pronounced proclivity to ogle undergrads;"[/li]
[li] unidentified male Hyde staff #1, Hyde apologist whether he wants to be or not;[/li]
[li] unidentified male Hyde staff #2, Hyde apologist whether he wants to be or not;[/li]
[li] perhaps others.[/li][/list]
[li] victim, underage, family is far away and has not been informed.[/li][/list]
Ummm... something seems a bit OFF about this picture. Two things rear up in my mind, other than the incredibly disparate blocks of personnel (just squint your eyes and look at that screen).
Why weren't the parents informed
immediately when the original complaints were aired, not to mention by the time this meeting took place (from what I've heard, there was even a second meeting like the above before they deigned to get around to it)?
Why isn't there an advocate for this girl present, even an informal one, a teacher or confidante of her own choosing, preferable someone outside of the school with no hidden agenda?[/list]
What exactly was Hyde trying to accomplish by intimidating and humiliating this girl who had just been sexually assaulted by one of the participants?
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Addendum, Aug. 29, 2007: I knew I had remembered seeing Judy Fortiere's name somewhere. I went back and re-read Gary's ISAC document. She start's being mentioned about a little more than a third of the way through. For greater ease of reading as well as for the greater good of everyone, I have copied this document onto fornits with its own thread. Links for downloading and source are provided therein. Many thanks, Gary!
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=23004 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=23004)
As a former parent I will say that I don't think they were bad people. I think that Judy had good intentions but was sadly misguided. I believe she found a purpose at Hyde after having difficulties as a parent. It can happen. It happened to us. Louis was a decent guy from what I remember, but it was obvious he was afraid of Hyde and speaking out against them. I was very disappointed in his weak character and allowing himself to be influenced by the Grants and Gaulds even though it was apparent he and Judy had strong convinctions about this sexual predator, LD. In fact Judy was the one who first encouraged our daughter to come forward as she too was sick of LD's behavior year after year.
I was glad to hear that the Fortier's "got out" of Hyde!
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I was glad to hear that the Fortier's "got out" of Hyde!
They probably had very little choice about that. It sounds like they were trying to straddle the middle road: placating Hyde, yet trying to do the best by the kids. That's kind of like trying to straddle the running boards of two different cars, each on its own separate road. Sooner or later, one turns off somewhere and, well...
That kind of situation always ends up with said staff being thrown out on their ear, or them managing to slip off discretely after having woken up to what Hyde is, before Hyde wakes up to their "disloyalty."
The only other route is a deal with the devil: heart and soul. Flesh payments only.
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Regardless of Judy Fortier's motivations, the above scenario of your daughter having to stand up to a roomful of Hyde diehards and apologists, including the man who sexually assaulted her, is just plain sick. I'm sorry, but no amount of feel-good intentions will cut it for me on this one. I doubt very much Judy was ever held accountable for her actions here.
Of course, what am I saying. It is always Hyde's position that the kid is primarily to blame.
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Of course, what am I saying. It is always Hyde's position that the kid is primarily to blame.
Damn right!! Ungrateful little mealy-mouthed twits! We at Hyde have dedicated our lives to helping kids grow up to be fine, upstanding citizens. And yet, without "parental commitment, most Hyde students fail to realize their potential, no matter how great our initial success with them." You, see, it is definitely NOT our fault!!
Flabbergasted,
Joseph W. Gauld, The Educator
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We had a little situation like that on my watch back in the halcyon days when Hyde was changing the face of American Education and training the leaders of tomorrow. The problem that little girl had was not realizing that everything ..... everything that happens at Hyde in an opportunity for personal growth. The process needs unqualified commitment from the parents. That means not running out to a lawyers office just cause little Sally got diddled.
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We had a little situation like that on my watch back in the halcyon days when Hyde was changing the face of American Education and training the leaders of tomorrow. The problem that little girl had was not realizing that everything ..... everything that happens at Hyde in an opportunity for personal growth. The process needs unqualified commitment from the parents. That means not running out to a lawyers office just cause little Sally got diddled.
From what I recall, Ed, you leaned on that girl's parents so hard you pretty much scared them off campus. Big Bully Hyde. I'm so impressed. I think you just might have more than a few integrity issues to resolve with yourself, hmmm?
And I should also very much like to know just what kind of personal growth you're talking about in cases where kids attempted suicide. Some successfully. Think maybe Hyde's judgment of everything in absolutes might have something to do with their mindset at the time?
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We had a little situation like that on my watch back in the halcyon days when Hyde was changing the face of American Education and training the leaders of tomorrow. The problem that little girl had was not realizing that everything ..... everything that happens at Hyde in an opportunity for personal growth. The process needs unqualified commitment from the parents. That means not running out to a lawyers office just cause little Sally got diddled.
From what I recall, Ed, you leaned on that girl's parents so hard you pretty much scared them off campus. Big Bully Hyde. I'm so impressed. I think you just might have more than a few integrity issues to resolve with yourself, hmmm?
And I should also very much like to know just what kind of personal growth you're talking about in cases where kids attempted suicide. Some successfully. Think maybe Hyde's judgment of everything in absolutes might have something to do with their mindset at the time?
You remember those lectures I gave. You have to be like Mao on the long march.: total dedication to transformative change, Hyde and your growth. Patience is a revolutionaries greatest virtue.
Ed Legg
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We had a little situation like that on my watch back in the halcyon days when Hyde was changing the face of American Education and training the leaders of tomorrow. The problem that little girl had was not realizing that everything ..... everything that happens at Hyde in an opportunity for personal growth. The process needs unqualified commitment from the parents. That means not running out to a lawyers office just cause little Sally got diddled.
From what I recall, Ed, you leaned on that girl's parents so hard you pretty much scared them off campus. Big Bully Hyde. I'm so impressed. I think you just might have more than a few integrity issues to resolve with yourself, hmmm?
And I should also very much like to know just what kind of personal growth you're talking about in cases where kids attempted suicide. Some successfully. Think maybe Hyde's judgment of everything in absolutes might have something to do with their mindset at the time?
You remember those lectures I gave. You have to be like Mao on the long march.: total dedication to transformative change, Hyde and your growth. Patience is a revolutionaries greatest virtue.
Ed Legg
All this joking about being Ed Legg and Joe Gauld might be funny to some, but I can't find the humor in it when it comes to my daughter being assaulted by a member of the staff at Hyde School. I don't think she would feel it is so funny either. Obviously you are of the male persuasion because you simply cannot understand the depth of the pain a young girl feels being felt up and betrayed by her teacher and supposed mentor.
It will happen again at Hyde School because they do not take it any more seriously today as they did then. This is apparent by the fact that Larry Dubinsky is still on Hyde Campus as displayed in their pics!! Happy hunting Larry!!! Hope they castrate you next time!
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It will happen again at Hyde School because they do not take it any more seriously today as they did then.
Your are absolutely right about this. See, Larry Dubinsky was not the first to travel down this path unimpeded. Nor will he be the last. There is actually quite a long-standing pattern of this kind of behavior on the part of Hyde faculty, not to mention the subsequent official stance of the school. See, they really don't think there is anything is wrong with this, as hard as it is to believe.
It all boils down to it being the fault of the student, as far as Hyde School is concerned.
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We had a little situation like that on my watch back in the halcyon days when Hyde was changing the face of American Education and training the leaders of tomorrow. The problem that little girl had was not realizing that everything ..... everything that happens at Hyde in an opportunity for personal growth. The process needs unqualified commitment from the parents. That means not running out to a lawyers office just cause little Sally got diddled.
From what I recall, Ed, you leaned on that girl's parents so hard you pretty much scared them off campus. Big Bully Hyde. I'm so impressed. I think you just might have more than a few integrity issues to resolve with yourself, hmmm?
And I should also very much like to know just what kind of personal growth you're talking about in cases where kids attempted suicide. Some successfully. Think maybe Hyde's judgment of everything in absolutes might have something to do with their mindset at the time?
You remember those lectures I gave. You have to be like Mao on the long march.: total dedication to transformative change, Hyde and your growth. Patience is a revolutionaries greatest virtue.
Ed Legg
All this joking about being Ed Legg and Joe Gauld might be funny to some, but I can't find the humor in it when it comes to my daughter being assaulted by a member of the staff at Hyde School. I don't think she would feel it is so funny either. Obviously you are of the male persuasion because you simply cannot understand the depth of the pain a young girl feels being felt up and betrayed by her teacher and supposed mentor.
It will happen again at Hyde School because they do not take it any more seriously today as they did then. This is apparent by the fact that Larry Dubinsky is still on Hyde Campus as displayed in their pics!! Happy hunting Larry!!! Hope they castrate you next time!
Males are also assaulted. I know what it is like. I think what the pranksters are doing is satirizing the Hyde position that it is always the student's responsibility for everything that happens even when a reasonable person would see the situation as a breach of trust on the part of the agent acting in Loco Parenti. It is actually hard to fathom the deep of Hyde's insularity. It is hard to understand why even from a completely cynical PR point of view why Hyde would have such a complete tin ear to the implications of having a pic of the new chair of the board kneeling in front of some one that was implicated in such a breach in publishing the announcement of his appointment. Go figure.
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All this joking about being Ed Legg and Joe Gauld might be funny to some, but I can't find the humor in it when it comes to my daughter being assaulted by a member of the staff at Hyde School. I don't think she would feel it is so funny either. Obviously you are of the male persuasion because you simply cannot understand the depth of the pain a young girl feels being felt up and betrayed by her teacher and supposed mentor.
It will happen again at Hyde School because they do not take it any more seriously today as they did then. This is apparent by the fact that Larry Dubinsky is still on Hyde Campus as displayed in their pics!! Happy hunting Larry!!! Hope they castrate you next time!
While I understand how you could see it that way, as a rape survivor I also see the value and humor in what these guys are doing. Sometimes the line between satire and reality is a little too close to call and that can make for some uneasy feelings but I think it serves a couple of purposes. One, its like battle humor. Surgical humor. People in extremely stressful situations sometimes cope through humor that would seem wholly inappropriate to an 'outsider'. Two, I think it shows how seriously fucked up these people are that the satire so closely resembles the truth. This really is how these people think. There are a few 'personalities' of Miller Newton, his wife and various other Straight boogeymen that I thoroughly enjoy.
Again, I understand how you could see it the way you do but I really don't think its meant with the thoughtlessness you're implying.
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Males are also assaulted. I know what it is like. I think what the pranksters are doing is satirizing the Hyde position that it is always the student's responsibility for everything that happens even when a reasonable person would see the situation as a breach of trust on the part of the agent acting in Loco Parenti. It is actually hard to fathom the deep of Hyde's insularity. It is hard to understand why even from a completely cynical PR point of view why Hyde would have such a complete tin ear to the implications of having a pic of the new chair of the board kneeling in front of some one that was implicated in such a breach in publishing the announcement of his appointment. Go figure.
I agree about the sexual abuse at Hyde. Wish I had the courage to tell my story. I dont know how, since they already know many of our cases, they continue on like these are just things that go on anywhere some of the time. No other school would be treating us like they do.
And I kind of like the pranksters. lol
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I agree about the sexual abuse at Hyde. Wish I had the courage to tell my story. I dont know how, since they already know many of our cases, they continue on like these are just things that go on anywhere some of the time. No other school would be treating us like they do.
And I kind of like the pranksters. lol
They get away with it because their victims are understandably afraid to speak out. Its just like in any other sexual assault but worse because in this case its the 'authorities' that are doing the assaulting and the victims now have zero trust in anyone. Let alone another authority figure.
You can tell your story. You can write it anonymously and post it or never post it at all. Writing sure did help me sort things out though. You don't have to be good at it, god knows I'm not. Just write. It doesn't matter if it makes sense or not, just start to get something down. Even a little at a time. It can be very cathartic.
I'm sorry for what you suffered.
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Sometimes the line between satire and reality is a little too close to call and that can make for some uneasy feelings but I think it serves a couple of purposes. One, its like battle humor. Surgical humor. People in extremely stressful situations sometimes cope through humor that would seem wholly inappropriate to an 'outsider'. Two, I think it shows how seriously fucked up these people are that the satire so closely resembles the truth. This really is how these people think.
I agree. The gallows humor in M*A*S*H 4077 is the closest thing that comes to my mind... :cry: :lol: :cry:
"Manic Street Preachers
Theme From MASH [Suicide Is Painless]
Promo Video
1992
Dir: Matthew Amos"[/list] (http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-g0aBYVCgE)
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The walls at Hyde are not erected 'round the physical perimeter, but around certain portions of our minds. Ingrained on a daily, 24/7 basis, life at Hyde is an overriding, constant, and morally laden diet of conformity to the social norms of that "corrupt and self-interested oligarchy."
When it comes to matters of superficial importance, such rewriting of our personal selves might seem innocuous, and may not last long after one's time there. But when it comes to inappropriate behavior of a more personal nature, e.g., sexual assaults and predation, it hits at the very core of our identity as human beings and carries with it -- at times -- lifelong damage and crippling trauma.
In response to the resident disbelief on this here forum over the seeming inability on the part of Hyde to behave in a decent, morally responsible fashion, let alone to acknowledge culpability for their actions, let alone to treat these incidents with the compassion and sensitivity they scream out for... might I humbly point out that this sociological dynamic on the part of Hyde is depressingly typical of deeply insular communities and cults.
I found the following article on incest in the Amish community quite enlightening as far as attempting to gain some insight on what happened to many of us:
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Features
JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2005
The Gentle People (http://http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2005/feature_labi_janfeb05.msp)
Impressed by their piety, courts have permitted the Amish to live outside the law. But in some places, the group's ethic of forgive and forget has produced a plague of incest--and let many perpetrators go unpunished.
By Nadya Labi
When she wrote the letter that she hoped would protect her sister, Mary Byler was lying on a twin bed, surrounded by rainbow-colored walls and a sky-blue ceiling decorated with bright white clouds. A stereo sat on the floor beside her. There were no signs of the Amish upbringing she had left behind--no plain wood furniture or chamber pot. Nothing except a stuffed doll that had belonged to her 6-year-old sister. The little girl had put the doll's bonnet on backward.
Mary fingered her long brown hair as she thought of her sister. And she thought about her older brother, Johnny, and his refusal when she'd asked him to go to therapy the day before. She started writing. "When I was 4 years old, I was molested, when I was 6, I was sexually abused (rape) from then on till I was 17," the 19-year-old put down. "There was nothing I could do about this abuse as it was incest."
Mary gave the letter to a friend, who drove 30 minutes northwest of the house where Mary was staying in the Wisconsin town of Viroqua, past a couple of dirt roads, a string of red barns, and frozen cornfields. He waited until nearly midnight on a cold evening last February, and then put the letter in the mailbox at the white shingled home of Sam Mast, an Amish minister in the community where Mary's family lived during her teenage years.
Mary's father was killed in a buggy accident when she was 5; she remembers him pulling her onto his lap and fondling her at their home in the small town of Sugar Grove, Pa. After her father's death, Mary's family moved 100 miles south to New Wilmington, Pa., another small town, where the back roads are filled with brown buggies and white shingled homes. There, Mary's two older cousins and brothers began molesting her. Johnny told the police that his cousins encouraged him, "as far as breaking her in." (The cousins denied that, but admitted to molesting Mary.) By the time Mary was in her teens, she was being raped regularly by Johnny, who is seven years older, and her brother Eli, who is four years older. Once, Eli climbed on top of her while Johnny held her down.
There was no escape. Mary was grabbed in the bedroom, in the barn, in the outhouse, milking the cows in the morning, and on her way to school. "It did not matter how hard I tried to hide," Mary would explain in her letter to Mast, which she also sent to other Amish clergy. "If I ran upstairs to go to bed or to hide because I was at home with the boys, I'd be locking my door and turn around and there was someone crawling through my window. So my windows were always locked . . . Then they started taking off my door."
To the hordes of tourists who travel to Pennsylvania Dutch country each year to go to quilting bees and shop for crafts, the Gentle People, as the Amish are known, represent innocence. They are a people apart, removed in place and arrested in time. They reject the corruptions of modernity--the cars that have splintered American communities and the televisions that have riveted the country's youth. The Amish way of life is grounded in agriculture, hard work, and community. Its deliberate simplicity takes the form of horse-drawn buggies, clothes that could have come from a Vermeer painting, and a native German dialect infused with English words.
The myth of the Amish is amplified in movies like Witness and television shows like Amish in the City. It's also fed by a series of practices that reinforce the group's insularity. The Amish want to be left alone by the state--and to a remarkable extent, they are. They don't fight America's wars or, for the most part, contribute to Social Security. In 1972, noting their "excellent record as law-abiding and generally self-sufficient members of society," the Supreme Court allowed the Amish to take their children out of school after eighth grade.
The license the Amish have been granted rests on the trust that the community will police itself, with Amish bishops and ministers acting in lieu of law enforcement. Yet keeping order comes hard to church leaders. "The Amish see the force of law as contrary to the Christian spirit," said Donald Kraybill, a professor at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania and an expert on the group. As a result, the Amish shy away from sending people to prison and the system of punishment of "the English," as the Amish call other Americans. Once a sinner has confessed, and his repentance has been deemed genuine, every member of the Amish community must forgive him.
This approach is rooted in the Amish notion of Gelassenheit, or submission. Church members abide by their clergymen; children obey their parents; sisters mind their brothers; and wives defer to their husbands (divorce is taboo). With each act of submission, the Amish follow the lesson of Jesus when he died on the cross rather than resist his adversaries.
But can a community govern itself by Jesus's teaching of mercy alone? It is sinful for the Amish to withhold forgiveness--so sinful that anyone who refers to a past misdeed after the Amish penalty for it has ended can be punished in the same manner as the original sinner. "That's a big thing in the Amish community," Mary said. "You have to forgive and forgive."
In some church districts, which encompass only two or three dozen families scattered along back roads, there appear to be many crimes like Johnny and Eli's to forgive. No statistics are available, but according to one Amish counselor who works with troubled church members across the Midwest, sexual abuse of children is "almost a plague in some communities." Some police forces and district attorneys do their best to step in, though they are rarely welcomed. Others are slow to investigate or quick to let off Amish offenders with light punishments. When that happens, girls like Mary are failed three times: by their families, their church, and their state.
KATHRYN BYLER, WHO COUNTS MARY AND HER FAMILY AS DISTANT KIN, lives more than 600 miles from them, in Morrow County, Ohio. The Amish don't own phones (some use them only for emergencies). Still, news gets around. Kathryn knew Mary's story.
Before her father's death, Mary told her mother, Sally, that he was molesting her. At first, Sally didn't believe her daughter. Mary said that her mother told her, "He says he's sorry and you have to forgive him." After her husband's death, Sally raised Mary and her eight sons on her own. Her household wasn't the tidiest, and the children didn't always listen to her. Sally got particularly frustrated with Mary, who had inherited her large almond-shaped eyes and tendency to talk out of turn.
When Mary's brothers began raping her, she turned to her mother again. Sally scolded the boys and gave them what Eli described as a light "mother's tap." She also gave them an herb that she hoped would reduce their sex drives. When the abuse resumed and Mary went back to her mother, she said Sally responded, "You don't fight hard enough and you don't pray hard enough."
"The boys were doing bad things and the mother knew," Kathryn said. "What mother would allow that to happen in her house?"
And yet, it happened in her house as well.
When I knocked on her screen door on a recent autumn afternoon, Kathryn was boiling two large pots of water for her husband Raymond's bath. His white shirt hung near the wood-burning stove, along with his spare straw hat. Raymond was out doing carpentry work. Kathryn tied on a black bonnet as she came to answer the door.
I had already encountered Kathryn in court documents. This was the mother who had tried to shield her husband from prosecution, after the boyfriend of one of her three daughters reported to the Ohio police that Raymond was molesting two of the girls. The abuse began when the older girl was 5 or 6; it lasted more than a decade, and included repeated rapes. (The girl grew up in Pennsylvania near Mary Byler, and told Mary that her father was raping her.)
"I may have been to blame, too," Kathryn Byler said in court at her husband's sentencing in December 1998. In earlier interviews with detectives, Byler faulted herself for failing to sexually satisfy her husband. Like Sally, she talked about administering an herbal remedy to reduce his sex drive. "She knew what was going on. It was almost, 'Take my daughter by the hand and let's go to the barn,' " said Sergeant Paul Mills, who helped investigate the case. " 'So sayeth her husband,' and whatever he says is the way it has to be."
While we talked, Kathryn sat in a rocking chair, which she'd polished to a high shine. She wore metal-frame glasses and a dark green dress, pinned together because her church doesn't allow zippers. Beneath her black bonnet, her face was plain and open. As her religion dictates, she wore no makeup or jewelry. Though she was afraid to talk and spoke softly, fear didn't stop the words from rushing out of her. It felt good, she said as she settled into her chair.
Kathryn doesn't see her husband as a bad man. She smiled when she showed me a picture of a lighthouse that Raymond had painted, and she praised him for coming home early that day to help can tomatoes. Still, he has a nasty temper. Kathryn hates the foosball table that sits in the middle of her living room, an eyesore of miniature yellow and black men that was a gift from an English friend. But she has stopped asking Raymond to take it away. When he gets upset, he shouts, and then she cries. She has learned to be careful with him.
Years before his arrest, Raymond confessed to molesting one of his daughters and, as Kathryn put it, "made things right in church." Kathryn said that she believed he had stopped the abuse, though when her husband sent her out of the house on errands, a part of her wondered. "I knew he wanted me to go away a lot, but I trusted him," she said. "I guess I trusted him too far."
When their trust is betrayed, women like Kathryn and Sally see themselves as having little recourse. In 1996, Sally remarried a man named William Kempf, whom she'd met on a bus ride. The cabinetmaker, who is now 78, had a mean streak, and he took to hitting Sally, Mary, and Mary's younger half-sister. "Sally lived eight miles from the nearest police station," Sally's lawyer, Russell Hanson, said to explain why his client, who declined to be interviewed, didn't report her sons. "I was told by one of the elders that women are not permitted to take their horses to town."
Yet in a shed one door down from the Kempfs' house sits a white phone. It's registered in an English neighbor's name but is used by the Amish. Sally didn't call the police because she'd been taught to defer to the men in her household, even if they were her sons, and because she belongs to a community that believes the greater threat comes from without, not within.
Kathryn, for her part, has borne her husband six children. Four older sons and daughters have left home--the oldest girl got married and the middle girl lives with her--but their mother works hard to take care of Raymond and the young son and daughter who still live with them. Even if the church allowed divorce, Kathryn wouldn't want one. She'd like Raymond to take medication to help calm his temper. He won't, though, so she takes pills to ease her own sadness. "We're supposed to forgive, but that's hard to do," Kathryn said. "The only way I can ever truly forgive him is when he dies. Those were our children, and look what he did."
THE AMISH CHURCH TRACES ITS ROOTS TO THE 16TH CENTURY, when a group of Swiss dissidents decided the Protestant Reformation was moving too slowly. They embraced baptism of adults rather than children, a practice that was seen as a threat to the civic order and punished by execution. The Amish faced persecution and torture, which they relive in their prayers and hymns every other Sunday, when they worship in each other's homes.
Today, most of the church's 200,000 members live in the United States, and about half of them are in Pennsylvania and Ohio, concentrated in rural counties that are the heart of Amish country. There is a sameness to much of the region, with its white shingled homes, dark buggies, and repeating surnames.
As Donald Kraybill explains in his book The Amish and the State, there are two kingdoms in Amish theology: the kingdom of Christ, inhabited by the Amish, and the one in which everyone else lives. To maintain the boundary between the two worlds, the Amish hold themselves apart from the secular state as much as they can. In the mid-1900s, dozens of Amish fathers went to prison rather than agree to send their kids to public schools with non-Amish children. The community opened its own one-room schoolhouses, where the curricula ignored subjects like science and sex education. A woman who now lives near the Amish in Ohio's Guernsey County reports that many of her neighbors weren't taught that the earth was round. "A lot of Amish will tell you they don't want their kids to be educated," she said. "The more they know, the more apt they are to leave."
The Amish tightly circumscribe their world in other ways as well. For the most part, they don't file lawsuits, serve on juries, run for political office, or vote (despite Republican efforts to enlist them in the 2004 election). In 1993, Martin France, the district attorney in Wayne County, Ohio, prosecuted a case against a driver who killed five Amish children. France got little support from the victims' families. "They didn't want anything to do with me. They would just say, 'This was God's will and we're not going to interfere,' " he recalled. An Amish woman who lived next to the site of the accident told France that while she was pinning up her laundry, she saw the driver's car race down a hill and hit the children, who flew as high as a nearby telephone pole. But the woman refused to testify; her bishop wouldn't allow it.
That bishop was a man in his late 20s who worked in his family's chair factory. Amish church leaders are chosen by lot--or, as the faithful believe, by the unseen hand of God. The bishop is the highest clergyman in the hierarchy of each church, and he oversees two ministers and a deacon. Men and women propose candidates for minister and deacon, and in most districts any man with two or three nominations is considered. The "elected" clergy is chosen according to a biblical method of casting lots: each man chooses from a pile of identical hymnals, and the one who chooses the book marked with a piece of paper bearing a verse from the Bible becomes a church leader.
The bishop, who is chosen the same way from a field of three ministers, has awesome authority. He interprets the Ordnung, the unwritten rules that govern each church district, stipulating everything from the size of a man's hat brim to the paint color on the outside of a house. When a church member violates the Ordnung, the bishop determines the punishment.
When she turned 17 three years ago, Mary Byler joined the church, as Amish adults must do. Johnny had stopped raping her when he got married in 1998. Mary thinks her new status as a church member protected her from Eli because it meant she had a duty to confess to fornication. She tried to forget what had happened with her brothers, but she couldn't. When she was 19, Mary sought succor from her minister, Sam Mast. As she stood awkwardly in his workshop, Mast said he saw that she was "heavy-hearted." But Mary couldn't bring herself to tell him what Johnny and Eli had done. Mast suggested that she confess her sins in church. "I said, 'Why don't you go to somebody and just empty it out?' " he told me recently.
To some degree, Johnny had confessed his own a few years earlier, when he was 21. But he admitted to fornication without saying that he had committed rape or that his victim had been his sister. The church elders didn't probe. Bishop Dan Miller listened to Johnny's confession, and later Mast gave him the letter Mary had written. But when I spoke with him, Miller said he had "no sense of what was going on." He didn't connect Johnny's confession with Mary's plea for help.
Johnny's punishment for his confessed sins lasted two weeks. During that period, he was shunned, the traditional Amish punishment for serious transgressions. As if sin were contagious, the community erects a metaphorical fence around the sinner. Johnny wasn't allowed to leave his home except to attend church. After his punishment, he returned to working in his harness shop.
Mary's punishment, by contrast, lasts forever.
When she wrote to Mast, Mary hoped that he and Miller would protect her younger sister, who had said things about another brother, David, then 17, that worried Mary. "It was little things like, 'David is bad to me, but Mom tells me he's sorry and I have to forgive him,' " Mary said. "I said, this is my voice coming out of her." Mary warned the ministers that she would press charges unless something was done. Nothing happened. So Mary went to the police. After the detectives came knocking, the community voted unanimously to excommunicate Mary.
Mast took a break from hammering in his workshop to explain the concept of excommunication to me. When Mary left her home, she broke her vow to uphold the Ordnung. The Amish believe that anyone who breaks that vow is damned and must be shunned. Church members may talk to her only to admonish her to repent and return, Mast said. He stroked his full beard as he struggled for the right English words. "We would tell Mary that we think she done wrong and tell her to come back," he said. "We couldn't take her word for anything. We would have nothing to do with her."
As for Mary's brothers, Miller declared that Johnny and Eli would be shunned for periods of four and six weeks. "They told us they wanted to quit and were sorry about what happened," the minister said.
IN THE SHADOW OF A PEELING WHITE HOUSE IN GUERNSEY COUNTY, OHIO, sits a rusty shed. Its wooden door had swung open on an afternoon in October, revealing black letters that spelled out the name N-O-R-M-A-N B-Y-L-E-R.
Now 72, Norman was diagnosed a few years ago with depression and the beginnings of dementia. A photograph of him at the time reveals thin features accented by a coarse white beard and dark, penetrating eyes. Norman has a history of pedophilia that dates to the 1970s, when he allegedly molested several of his eight daughters and at least one young woman outside his family. During that period, he confessed in church, repented, and was banished for four weeks.
Aware of her father's problem, Norman's youngest daughter "went to great lengths to make sure he wasn't alone" with kids, said his public defender, Diane Menashe. In 1995, the daughter and her husband, Tobie Yoder, let Norman move onto their property. Four years later, the Yoders discovered that Norman was molesting three of his granddaughters, ages 3, 5, and 8.
Tobie went to Bishop Moses Miller and the elders in his Swartzentruber district. That denomination falls on the most restrictive end of the spectrum from Old Order to New Order Amish. (The New Order allows brighter colored clothing and more modern appliances.) Bishops like Miller actively police their congregations. The sins multiply quickly. Driving a car, using a tractor, masturbating, and drinking alcohol can all trigger the maximum six-week ban. (At the same time, some Swartzentrubers make allowances, like permitting tobacco and "bed courtship": On Saturday nights in Moses Miller's district, teenage boys are allowed to steal into the rooms of girls their age. The teens are supposed to keep their clothes on, but the boy isn't expected to leave until milking time the next morning. Many parents encourage bed courtship because it often leads to early marriages, which make young people less likely to leave the church.)
Moses Miller responded to Tobie Yoder's appeal by scolding Norman, who told him that in molesting his granddaughters, he was acting "no different than the cows in the field." Norman was shunned for six weeks. But he remained out of control, so volatile that adults in the area feared for their safety. Eventually Bishop Miller took the unusual step of allowing Yoder to take his father-in-law to a hospital.
Despite Norman's recurring problems, other bishops say they would not have made the decision that Miller did. "We have to deal with the sin if it's once, twice, or thrice," said Chris Kauffman, the most respected bishop in the Mt. Gilead area of Ohio's Morrow County.
Yet Levi Schwartz, who lives in Mt. Gilead, said the church's reliance on repentance failed him. "Sometimes I went into the bedroom and cried because of my sin," he recalled. In 1989 Schwartz started molesting one of his daughters. He kissed the girl, rubbed her, and bared himself to her until she grew old enough to date, and then he moved on to her younger sister. On a late fall night in his cavernous living room, the 52-year-old, who has since left the Amish, talked about his past with unnerving ease while one of the daughters he molested sat on a nearby couch. "I confessed in church a number of times," Schwartz said. "I wanted to be clean, so I took it to the ministers. I thought that would give me grace, and the power to overcome it."
Schwartz said his bishop, Eli Raber, discouraged Schwartz's sporadic attempts to get counseling. (Raber declined to comment.) In 1994, Schwartz's son Benjamin began touching his sisters; he confessed in church and was shunned for two weeks. Levi Schwartz, however, was losing faith in the church's method of punishment. After one of his daughters started crying while he was molesting her, Schwartz checked himself into Oaklawn Psychiatric Hospital in Indiana. He asked the girl to pray for him, and she did.
When Norman Byler's family sent him to Mercy Medical Center in Ohio, he received a week of counseling and was given antipsychotic medication and antidepressants, which he burned instead of taking. Still, Yoder believes the "doctoring" helped his father-in-law. "I felt like we had him half decent under control," he said.
But pedophilia is a hard disease to treat. Deborah Love, an English neighbor who lived next to the Yoders, saw Norman take his 3-year-old granddaughter into his woodshed on a fall day in 1999. She knew that one of Norman's daughters had recently moved her family to Iowa after saying that Norman had asked to sleep with one of her girls. "He was with me enough. He wasn't going to be with my daughter," Love said the woman told her.
A day after Norman took the 3-year-old into his shed, Love noticed some dried blood on the girl's leg. She called Guernsey County Children's Services. The Amish accused Love of lying, and she said she has felt their anger. When some of the men passed her house, they raised their hats and turned them sideways to avoid looking at her. Love's husband said that one young Amish man warned him during hunting season that, "Accidents do happen, so you'd better be careful." In the spring of 2000, the Loves moved out of the neighborhood.
LAST MARCH, A DETECTIVE IN WISCONSIN phoned trooper Janice Wilson to tell her about statements that Mary and her family had made about rampant incest in the Amish community in which they grew up. That community is in New Wilmington, Pa., near where Wilson works. When she started investigating, she was stunned to hear reports of extensive sexual abuse, and of births resulting from incest.
Amish insiders say the problem is so common that a bishop in the area has preached against it. Johnny Byler said that, growing up in Lawrence County, he thought it was normal to have sex with his sister. "Other kids would talk about it," Johnny said. When I asked Mary's cousin, David Wengerd, whether he had molested his sister in addition to Mary, as Mary has charged, he responded, "I'd rather not answer."
Janice Wilson and I drove through New Wilmington, past a string of buggies heading to the home of a local Amish man, who was marrying off his daughter. The white houses we passed had pale blue doors, the only touch of color allowed by the church. Wilson was despairing over the cases she'd been unable to crack because no victim would come forward. Her supervisor, Lieutenant Peter Vogel, echoed her frustration, saying, "The moment we approach them as police, they shut up, the whole clan."
When the police identify a perpetrator, however, their work in one sense becomes easy. The Amish ethic of confession extends to answering questions asked by outsiders. With little prompting from the detectives who questioned him, Norman Byler admitted to manually penetrating his 8-year-old granddaughter. He said that he hurt the child to get back at her father, who had refused to take Norman to the hospital to treat a torn muscle. (Most Swartzentrubers resort to Western medicine only in emergencies.) Raymond Byler, Levi and Benjamin Schwartz, and Johnny, Eli, and David Byler confessed with similar readiness.
Johnny and Eli were each charged with five counts of sexual assault and pleaded guilty, to two counts and one count, respectively. David pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting his little sister. In September, a month before his sentencing, Johnny said he sometimes felt suicidal and couldn't understand why he might go to prison. "Johnny thinks, 'I did a terrible thing but I've tried to make it right,' " said Jack Buswell, his attorney. "He feels let down."
Yet the confessions of Johnny and other Amish offenders haven't elicited heavy penalties. Levi Schwartz got probation and his son has not been prosecuted. The district attorney in Lawrence County said he had not decided whether to prosecute Mary's cousins, Chris and David Wengerd. Raymond Byler was sentenced to four years, even though the judge in his case found that he posed "the greatest likelihood of recidivism." Norman Byler faced a maximum penalty of 25 years in jail, but prosecutor Keith Plummer recommended that he serve no time beyond the two years he had waited to go on trial. The judge set aside the plea, saying he was unwilling to countenance such leniency for an offender who had shown "no genuine remorse." Norman was sentenced to five years; before his release last month, he wrote to the Yoders to say he wanted to come home.
The relatively light sentences meted out to these men stand out at a time when sex offenders are punished with increasing harshness. The fear that many pedophiliacs can't be stopped has led Congress to lengthen sentences for child sex offenders and has persuaded some states to use involuntary civil commitment laws to keep them behind bars indefinitely. Why did these Amish, by contrast, receive only mercy?
District attorneys and judges appear to be quick to forgive in the counties that have the largest Amish populations. The 92,000 Amish who live in Ohio and Pennsylvania generate hundreds of millions in annual tourism revenue. Brent Yager, who prosecuted Levi Schwartz, would never say that he spared Schwartz to protect the appeal of Pennsylvania Dutch country. But prosecutors and judges are as steeped in the myth of the Gentle People as anyone. "Is Schwartz getting a break because he's Amish?" Yager said. "In some ways, yes. Is he going to reoffend? I don't think so."
In Wisconsin, where only 10,000 Amish live, Timothy Gaskell took a harder line in prosecuting Johnny, Eli, and David Byler. Gaskell also brought misdemeanor charges against Mary's stepfather, for beating her, and against Sally, for failing to report the abuse of her daughter. As a result of Gaskell's efforts, the Kempfs were put on probation, David got a four-year prison sentence, and Eli got eight years in prison. Johnny, however, was ordered to spend one year at the county jail, and mostly at night. During the day, the judge said, he could work to keep his farm running. A crowd of 150 Amish turned out to support Johnny at his sentencing.
IT IS HARD TO THINK OF MARY BYLER AS LUCKY, but in one respect she was: The state responded when she asked for help. Anna Slabaugh has a different story. Anna, who is the eighth of nine children, remembers reading books with her mother as a child. Fannie Slabaugh taught school when Anna was young, and though reading books was strongly discouraged by the family's Swartzentruber district, she couldn't bear to get rid of the books she had found in an abandoned schoolhouse.
Maybe it was the Nancy Drew mysteries, but Anna never felt she belonged with the Swartzentrubers. She got upset when her father cut off the tails of the pigs or pulled out the horns of the goats. She liked to draw, which violated the Ordnung. And she didn't like the constant dimness: The church allowed only kerosene, which gives off less light than gas, and candles had to be kept at a low glow.
Whether for wearing her cap too far back on her head or for "acting around" in church, Anna was often in trouble. Her father was in poor health, because he refused to take insulin for his diabetes, but he knew how to give a good beating. Sometimes he used the strap, a foot-long piece of rubber common in Amish homes; at other times, he took Anna "to the woodpile" and hit her with a piece of wood.
When Anna turned 11, she told me, her 19-year-old brother began molesting her, stopping just short of intercourse. When he moved away, another 17-year-old brother started raping her. (The court documents involving Anna's family are sealed.) Anna didn't try to stop her brothers at first. "You don't tell your brothers, who are so much older than you, No," she said. But when she got her period at 13 and realized she could have a baby, she started fighting back. "He would make sure he put a lot of pressure on my top so I couldn't breathe," she said of the younger brother.
Anna wanted help, but she didn't think she would get it from her church. So she began dropping hints about the abuse to English neighbors. When they didn't pick up on her cues, she got bolder. In 2001, while cleaning house for her family's landlord, Anna used the phone to call a battered women's shelter in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. The counselors on the other end of the line didn't take her seriously. But after a month of calls, the shelter alerted Children and Family Services Division of Knox County.
When a social worker visited Anna's home, Anna told her about the sexual abuse. She also reported that her parents were moving the family to Pennsylvania. Laurie Roberts, one of the social workers on Anna's case in Ohio, said she was taught in training that sexual abuse among the Amish is pervasive, and seldom reported. (The problem is significant enough that the counties near Knox publish a pamphlet to educate the Amish about sexual abuse.) Yet the county left Anna in her home. "Oh Gosh, I wish I could get it in those C.S. people that my parents will absolutely kill me now," Anna wrote at the time to a cousin who had left the Amish. The social workers "say you'll have to be hurt by them before we'll do anything about it," she continued.
Anna tried to run away. But when her parents figured out where she was and called the woman who was sheltering her, Anna was sent home. Fannie began locking Anna in her room. The family moved to Tionesta, Pa., where Fannie tried to get her daughter declared mentally ill. She took Anna to a doctor who found that Anna's eardrum had collapsed from blows to her head and seemed doubtful that the damage had been caused by buggy accidents as he'd been told. Fannie next tried a massage therapist, Barbara Burke. Noticing scars on Anna's legs, Burke called Children and Youth Services in Clarion County. On a later visit, Burke massaged Anna's father while CYS secretly interviewed Anna in the basement. The agency later visited Anna at her home. But it didn't take her into protective custody. (CYS declined to comment.)
When Fannie found out about the CYS visit, she and Anna went with 13 other kids to the home of John Yoder, an Amish dentist who lived an hour and a half away in the town of Punxsutawney. Yoder's living room had a recliner with a tin pan and some needles next to it. Anna watched as the other kids each had one or two bad teeth pulled. When it was her turn, Yoder shot some novocaine into her upper gum. She shook her head and told him that two of her lower teeth had cavities. He shot the lower gum, and asked Fannie which teeth should go. Anna's mother answered, "Take them all," and Yoder pulled--along the upper gum, along the lower gum, until every tooth was gone. "After he had pulled the last tooth," Anna remembered, "my mom looked at me and said, 'I guess you won't be talking anymore.'"
Anna bled for three days. Her family ignored her, except to periodically hand her a drink. She couldn't talk, but that didn't matter, because Anna had nothing left to say. At church, she looked away when other kids pointed at her mouth. Fannie Slabaugh told me that Anna had asked for her teeth to be pulled. But the detective who investigated the case, Trooper Michael Pisarchic, said that the other kids who went with Anna to see Yoder said that Anna was being punished. Meanwhile, CYS was continuing to investigate. A court date was set for the spring of 2002. The bishop in Anna's district, Moses Shettler, called Barbara Burke and asked her to testify that Anna had mental problems. Burke refused. On the Friday before Anna was scheduled to appear in court, soon after her teeth had been pulled, Shettler and a group of elders visited Anna's parents. Anna said her parents threatened two days later to take her out to the woodpile, or worse, unless she told her lawyer that she took back her accusations against her brothers. Stripped of faith in the state to protect her, Anna did as she was told.
Neither Anna's parents nor John Yoder were ever charged with abuse. The judge in Anna's case allowed the younger brother to remain under Amish supervision as long as he had no contact with Anna. But Anna said he returned home on the day of the hearing. "They don't believe it's any of our business," said Roberts, Anna's Ohio social worker, of the Amish attitude toward child abuse investigations. But it's the job of social workers, police, and prosecutors to make child abuse their business. The state's duty to push past the barriers thrown up by parents and the community can't hinge on the religion they practice. Its role becomes more essential, not less, when adults wall off children from the outside world.
While the authorities idled, Anna was being watched constantly. One of her chores was taking the family's horses out to pasture, within view of the house. On a morning in June when the animals seemed frisky, Anna clapped her hands. The horses scattered and she pretended to chase them, cutting across the field to a mailbox, where she dropped off a letter she'd written to Burke. "Are you still willing to help, or am I not welcome?" she wrote. "I need to get out of here." She asked Burke to put a message in a plastic bottle for her and leave it in a ditch by the mailbox. Two days later, Anna spooked the horses again, and a message was waiting. "Our arms are open to you and so are our doors," Burke promised.
Anna burned the note with a lighter and went home. It was her turn to make supper. She lit the stove, began heating water, and sat down to write a letter to her family. The sun was falling when she finished. Anna climbed out of the kitchen window and ran.
WHEN MARY BYLER LEFT HOME, SHE THREW HER WHITE CAP onto Sam Mast's driveway and screeched off in the car of a woman who took her in. In the two years since, Mary has driven by her mother's house a few times in a black Grand Prix. "If Mary wants to get away," Sally asked Eli's lawyer, Greg Lunde, "why does she keep coming back?"
When I caught up with Mary, six months after she left the Amish, she insisted that her mother and her brothers were dead to her. But in the kitchen of the spotless trailer she rents next to Wisconsin's La Crosse River, she couldn't stop talking about them. Cracking eggs into a mixing bowl to make sugar cookies--never mind that it was after midnight--she dwelt on how much Johnny, Eli, and David loved her baking.
Though Mary can't quite leave her family behind, she ran from the church and didn't look back. She pierced her ears last March, earned a GED in April, and got a driver's license in May. A friend bought her the Grand Prix, and Mary paid him back on the $8-an-hour salary she earns cleaning a hospital in La Crosse.
Mary took me out to her car to play a Loretta Lynn cassette. Dressed in shorts and a tight pink T-shirt with a white angel on the front, she shifted a Doral cigarette from her right hand to her left so that she could jab more effectively at the seek button on the car stereo. She was looking for one song: "Hey, Loretta." When it started, Mary jerked her head to the beat. "Goodbye tub and clothesline, goodbye pots an' pans," she belted out, flinging her hair and pounding her right leg. Her nails painted a matching pink and a silver necklace hanging from her neck, Mary didn't care how many Ordnung rules she was breaking. She was drunk on freedom.
Nadya Labi is a senior editor at Legal Affairs.
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Now there's some folk that know a thing or two about "character education," har har har!! In fact, they pretty much bring in the whole shebang-bang we like to touch on during a kid's stay at Hyde!!
Happy to get my hands dirty,
Joseph W. Gauld, The Educator
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My name is Sverre Tysl, and I was a student at Hyde Bath from 03-06. I was struck in the head, choked out, and slammed against a car by Paul Hurd in Novermber of 2004. I was picked up by him, (after violating an ethic) and the incident occured with no provocation from me, physical or verbal. I was also called a 'faggot' and my health was purposfully threatened by Kevin Folan, in that same year. Doesnt anyone catch onto this crap?
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My name is Sverre Tysl, and I was a student at Hyde Bath from 03-06. I was struck in the head, choked out, and slammed against a car by Paul Hurd in Novermber of 2004. I was picked up by him, (after violating an ethic) and the incident occured with no provocation from me, physical or verbal. I was also called a 'faggot' and my health was purposfully threatened by Kevin Folan, in that same year. Doesnt anyone catch onto this crap?
Sverre, the only way the authorities will catch onto Hyde is if students and parents start reporting the abuse. I strongly suggest that you or anyone else call Child and Family Services hotline at the following numbers. For Connecticut it is 1-800-842-2288. Maine is 1-800-452-1999. They people who man the phones will take down the report and pass it on to the proper authority. They are interested in not only physical abuse, but mental abuse and also neglect. The more information you give them, the better off you are. Make sure you let them know of other abuses you have seen at Hyde including any kind of neglect. This is the only way to stop Hyde.
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I was struck in the head, choked out, and slammed against a car by Paul Hurd in Novermber of 2004. I was picked up by him, (after violating an ethic) and the incident occured with no provocation from me, physical or verbal.
Those of you who recall Paul Hurd from the seventies (and thus clearly have no life) will recall the student who fought back and gave Hurd a black eye. Always a fond memory.
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I was struck in the head, choked out, and slammed against a car by Paul Hurd in Novermber of 2004. I was picked up by him, (after violating an ethic) and the incident occured with no provocation from me, physical or verbal.
Those of you who recall Paul Hurd from the seventies (and thus clearly have no life) will recall the student who fought back and gave Hurd a black eye. Always a fond memory.
From what I recollect, Paul Hurd's experience of Hyde from a student standpoint comprised of one sole year, that is, the very first year of Hyde's existence. Joe Gaud's propensity for favoritism ran even more unfettered then than it does today, and I think we can all imagine just where Paul stood on that spectrum. Bear in mind that Hyde School was originally for naughty little boys of the well-to-do, and Paul was a goody-two-shoes who just happened to not get into college on his first try. So his year was actually a post-graduate year. I am told Paul was Hyde's first graduate.
I can also imagine that Joe's megalomania had not yet fully fomented into the degree of mindfuckery that came later. A lot of the shit that went down in the 70's was new then (yes, I clearly have no life). I'm not sure exactly when it started, but I imagine it was not fully in place during Hyde's first few years in the late 60's.
Paul has plenty of experience skewering students from a faculty's standpoint, however. I am told he sharpens his pointing finger in a pencil sharpener.
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My name is Sverre Tysl, and I was a student at Hyde Bath from 03-06. I was struck in the head, choked out, and slammed against a car by Paul Hurd in Novermber of 2004. I was picked up by him, (after violating an ethic) and the incident occured with no provocation from me, physical or verbal. I was also called a 'faggot' and my health was purposfully threatened by Kevin Folan, in that same year. Doesnt anyone catch onto this crap?
Sagadahoc county D.A.:
207-443-8204
Tell him you want to file charges.
http://www.sagcounty.com/district_attorney.htm (http://www.sagcounty.com/district_attorney.htm)
If you can get the DA to investigate you may then be able to get a tort attorney to bring suite against Hyde on spec. Tell mom and Dad they are going to get some of their 35k back.
Hyde is giving you an opportunity to learn a lesson in character growth. The lesson is stand up and fight back.
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I was struck in the head, choked out, and slammed against a car by Paul Hurd in Novermber of 2004. I was picked up by him, (after violating an ethic) and the incident occured with no provocation from me, physical or verbal.
Those of you who recall Paul Hurd from the seventies (and thus clearly have no life) will recall the student who fought back and gave Hurd a black eye. Always a fond memory.
From what I recollect, Paul Hurd's experience of Hyde from a student standpoint comprised of one sole year, that is, the very first year of Hyde's existence. Joe Gaud's propensity for favoritism ran even more unfettered then than it does today, and I think we can all imagine just where Paul stood on that spectrum. Bear in mind that Hyde School was originally for naughty little boys of the well-to-do, and Paul was a goody-two-shoes who just happened to not get into college on his first try. So his year was actually a post-graduate year. I am told Paul was Hyde's first graduate.
I can also imagine that Joe's megalomania had not yet fully fomented into the degree of mindfuckery that came later. A lot of the shit that went down in the 70's was new then (yes, I clearly have no life). I'm not sure exactly when it started, but I imagine it was not fully in place during Hyde's first few years in the late 60's.
Paul has plenty of experience skewering students from a faculty's standpoint, however. I am told he sharpens his pointing finger in a pencil sharpener.
I honestly can't say whether I'd choose to be Paul Hurd or a Kazakhstan nuclear orphan. Whether I'd choose decades of character education or decades of Soviet nuclear testing.
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I was struck in the head, choked out, and slammed against a car by Paul Hurd in Novermber of 2004. I was picked up by him, (after violating an ethic) and the incident occured with no provocation from me, physical or verbal.
Those of you who recall Paul Hurd from the seventies (and thus clearly have no life) will recall the student who fought back and gave Hurd a black eye. Always a fond memory.
From what I recollect, Paul Hurd's experience of Hyde from a student standpoint comprised of one sole year, that is, the very first year of Hyde's existence. Joe Gaud's propensity for favoritism ran even more unfettered then than it does today, and I think we can all imagine just where Paul stood on that spectrum. Bear in mind that Hyde School was originally for naughty little boys of the well-to-do, and Paul was a goody-two-shoes who just happened to not get into college on his first try. So his year was actually a post-graduate year. I am told Paul was Hyde's first graduate.
I can also imagine that Joe's megalomania had not yet fully fomented into the degree of mindfuckery that came later. A lot of the shit that went down in the 70's was new then (yes, I clearly have no life). I'm not sure exactly when it started, but I imagine it was not fully in place during Hyde's first few years in the late 60's.
Paul has plenty of experience skewering students from a faculty's standpoint, however. I am told he sharpens his pointing finger in a pencil sharpener.
I honestly can't say whether I'd choose to be Paul Hurd or a Kazakhstan nuclear orphan. Whether I'd choose decades of character education or decades of Soviet nuclear testing.
Either way, I am sure his brain physiology would be permanently altered by this point.
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My name is Sverre Tysl, and I was a student at Hyde Bath from 03-06. I was struck in the head, choked out, and slammed against a car by Paul Hurd in Novermber of 2004. I was picked up by him, (after violating an ethic) and the incident occured with no provocation from me, physical or verbal. I was also called a 'faggot' and my health was purposfully threatened by Kevin Folan, in that same year. Doesnt anyone catch onto this crap?
Sverre, the only way the authorities will catch onto Hyde is if students and parents start reporting the abuse. I strongly suggest that you or anyone else call Child and Family Services hotline at the following numbers. For Connecticut it is 1-800-842-2288. Maine is 1-800-452-1999. They people who man the phones will take down the report and pass it on to the proper authority. They are interested in not only physical abuse, but mental abuse and also neglect. The more information you give them, the better off you are. Make sure you let them know of other abuses you have seen at Hyde including any kind of neglect. This is the only way to stop Hyde.
If indeed what you are saying is true Sverre, then Hyde needs to be held accountable. I remember when I was there, a teachers daughter was pinned up against the wall and she was threatened by Ken Grant. The Mother did not go to the authorities because she needed her job and needed refrences when she left.
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Well, whaddaya know!! Swear-what's-his-face finally shows up and tries to show some disrespect for my fine fine son-in-law Paul Turd!! I don't know who'd be able to control that wild Laurie child of mine otherwise. (Land sakes, I've often scratched my head and wondered why... She's pretty immune to that finger, ya know...)
Well, Swear, you just go right ahead and try ta make some feeble noise 'bout this! Many's the dumb ass who thought they could succeed. Hyde has never had a successful lawsuit brought against them, har har har!! That's because we are the best, the first, and the ONLY real character education program around!! Having ol' Summs marry that Gannett gal may have helped a bit, though. He owed me at least that much, what with all the indiscretions I had to "pretty up" back at New Hampton and Berwick when we left... har har har!
Paul and Laurie mentioned that they might just take me up on that trip to Hawaii I offered them after that little scene on the car with you, har har har!! So they might not even be around to be bothered by your limp-wristed wuss-assed attempts!!! Har har har har har!!!
Beside myself with glee,
Joseph W. Gauld, The Educator
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I am told he sharpens his pointing finger in a pencil sharpener.
He is worn right down to a nub. Fortunately he still has linguistic talents.
Head of School
Bath Campus
Laurie Hurd
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I am told he sharpens his pointing finger in a pencil sharpener.
He is worn right down to a nub. Fortunately he still has linguistic talents.
Head of School
Bath Campus
Laurie Hurd
So, Princess, are you indeed going to Hawaii? :rofl:
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Perhaps Hyde should take notes. They might actually learn something.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h28L ... wD8SD5OJO0 (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h28LEG90GGTAaEOfdBPKwb5kXdawD8SD5OJO0)
By MARTHA IRVINE and ROBERT TANNER – 4 days ago
The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact. Yes, he had touched a fifth-grader's breast during recess. "I guess it was just lust of the flesh," he told his boss.
That got Gary C. Lindsey fired from his first teaching job in Oelwein, Iowa. But it didn't end his career. He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a half-dozen more abuse accusations.
When he finally surrendered his teaching license in 2004 — 40 years after that first little girl came forward — it wasn't a principal or a state agency that ended his career. It was one persistent victim and her parents.
Lindsey's case is just a small example of a widespread problem in American schools: sexual misconduct by the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation's children.
Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love.
An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.
There are 3 million public school teachers nationwide, most devoted to their work. Yet the number of abusive educators — nearly three for every school day — speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.
Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many abusers have several victims.
And no one — not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments — has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.
Those are the findings of an AP investigation in which reporters sought disciplinary records in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The result is an unprecedented national look at the scope of sex offenses by educators — the very definition of breach of trust.
The seven-month investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.
Young people were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more than 80 percent of those were students. At least half the educators who were punished by their states also were convicted of crimes related to their misconduct.
The findings draw obvious comparisons to sex abuse scandals in other institutions, among them the Roman Catholic Church. A review by America's Catholic bishops found that about 4,400 of 110,000 priests were accused of molesting minors from 1950 through 2002.
Clergy abuse is part of the national consciousness after a string of highly publicized cases. But until now, there's been little sense of the extent of educator abuse.
Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that's been apparent for years.
"From my own experience — this could get me in trouble — I think every single school district in the nation has at least one perpetrator. At least one," says Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer who has spent 30 years investigating abuse and misconduct in schools. "It doesn't matter if it's urban or rural or suburban."
One report mandated by Congress estimated that as many as 4.5 million students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade. That figure includes verbal harassment that's sexual in nature.
Jennah Bramow, one of Lindsey's accusers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wonders why there isn't more outrage.
"You're supposed to be able to send your kids to school knowing that they're going to be safe," says Bramow, now 20. While other victims accepted settlement deals and signed confidentiality agreements, she sued her city's schools for failing to protect her and others from Lindsey — and won. Only then was Lindsey's teaching license finally revoked.
As an 8-year-old elementary-school student, Bramow told how Lindsey forced her hand on what she called his "pee-pee."
"How did you know it was his pee-pee?" an interviewer at St. Luke's Child Protection Center in Cedar Rapids asked Jennah in a videotape, taken in 1995.
"'Cause I felt something?" said Jennah, then a fidgety girl with long, dark hair.
"How did it feel?" the investigator asked.
"Bumpy," Jennah replied. She drew a picture that showed how Lindsey made her touch him on the zipper area of his pants.
Lindsey, now 68, refused multiple requests for an interview. "It never occurs to you people that some people don't want their past opened back up," he said when an AP reporter approached him at his home outside Cedar Rapids and asked questions.
That past, according to evidence presented in the Bramow's civil case, included accusations from students and parents along with reprimands from principals that were filed away, explained away and ultimately ignored until 1995, when accusations from Bramow and two other girls forced his early retirement. Even then, he kept his teaching license until the Bramows took the case public and filed a complaint with the state.
Like Lindsey, the perpetrators that the AP found are everyday educators — teachers, school psychologists, principals and superintendents among them. They're often popular and recognized for excellence and, in nearly nine out of 10 cases, they're male. While some abused students in school, others were cited for sexual misconduct after hours that didn't necessarily involve a kid from their classes, such as viewing or distributing child pornography.
They include:
_ Joseph E. Hayes, a former principal in East St. Louis, Ill. DNA evidence in a civil case determined that he impregnated a 14-year-old student. Never charged criminally, his license was suspended in 2003. He has ignored an order to surrender it permanently.
_ Donald M. Landrum, a high school teacher in Polk County, N.C. His bosses warned him not to meet with female students behind closed doors. They put a glass window in his office door, but Landrum papered over it. Police later found pornography and condoms in his office and alleged that he was about to have sex with a female student. His license was revoked in 2005.
_ Rebecca A. Boicelli, a former teacher in Redwood City, Calif. She conceived a child with a 16-year-old former student then went on maternity leave in 2004 while police investigated. She was hired to teach in a nearby school district; board members said police hadn't told them about the investigation.
The overwhelming majority of cases the AP examined involved teachers in public schools. Private school teachers rarely turn up because many are not required to have a teaching license and, even when they have one, disciplinary actions are typically handled within the school.
Two of the nation's major teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, each denounced sex abuse while emphasizing that educators' rights also must be taken into account.
"Students must be protected from sexual predators and abuse, and teachers must be protected from false accusations," said NEA President Reg Weaver, who refused to be interviewed and instead released a two-paragraph statement.
Kathy Buzad of the AFT said that "if there's one incident of sexual misconduct between a teacher and a student that's one too many."
The United States has grown more sympathetic to victims of sex abuse over recent decades, particularly when it comes to young people. Laws that protect children from abusers bear the names of young victims. Police have made pursuing Internet predators a priority. People convicted of abuse typically face tough sentences and registry as sex offenders.
Even so, sexually abusive teachers continue to take advantage, and there are several reasons why.
For one, many Americans deny the problem, and even treat the abuse with misplaced fascination. Popular media reports trumpet relationships between attractive female teachers and male students.
"It's dealt with in a salacious manner with late-night comedians saying 'What 14-year-old boy wouldn't want to have sex with his teacher?' It trivializes the whole issue," says Robert Shoop, a professor of educational administration at Kansas State University who has written a book aimed at helping school districts identify and deal with sexual misconduct.
"In other cases, it's reported as if this is some deviant who crawled into the school district — 'and now that they're gone, everything's OK.' But it's much more prevalent than people would think."
The AP investigation found efforts to stop individual offenders but, overall, a deeply entrenched resistance toward recognizing and fighting abuse. It starts in school hallways, where fellow teachers look away or feel powerless to help. School administrators make behind-the-scenes deals to avoid lawsuits and other trouble. And in state capitals and Congress, lawmakers shy from tough state punishments or any cohesive national policy for fear of disparaging a vital profession.
That only enables rogue teachers, and puts kids who aren't likely to be believed in a tough spot.
In case after case the AP examined, accusations of inappropriate behavior were dismissed. One girl in Mansfield, Ohio, complained about a sexual assault by teacher Donald Coots and got expelled. It was only when a second girl, years later, brought a similar complaint against the same teacher that he was punished.
And that second girl also was ostracized by the school community and ultimately left town.
Unless there's a videotape of a teacher involved with a child, everyone wants to believe the authority figure, says Wayne Promisel, a retired Virginia detective who has investigated many sex abuse cases.
He and others who track the problem reiterated one point repeatedly during the AP investigation: Very few abusers get caught.
They point to several academic studies estimating that only about one in 10 victimized children report sexual abuse of any kind to someone who can do something about it.
Teachers, administrators and even parents frequently don't, or won't, recognize the signs that a crime is taking place.
"They can't see what's in front of their face. Not unlike a kid in an alcoholic family, who'll say 'My family is great,'" says McGrath, the California lawyer and investigator who now trains entire school systems how to recognize what she calls the unmistakable "red flags" of misconduct.
In Hamburg, Pa., in 2002, those "red flags" should have been clear. A student skipped classes every day to spend time with one teacher. He gave her gifts and rides in his car. She sat on his lap. The bond ran so deep that the student got chastised repeatedly — even suspended once for being late and absent so often. But there were no questions for the teacher.
Heather Kline was 12, a girl with a broad smile and blond hair pulled back tight. Teacher Troy Mansfield had cultivated her since she was in his third-grade class.
"Kids, like, idolized me because they thought I was, like, cool because he paid more attention to me," says Kline, now 18, sitting at her mother's kitchen table, sorting through a file of old poems and cards from Mansfield. "I was just like really comfortable. I could tell him anything."
He never pushed her, just raised the stakes, bit by bit — a comment about how good she looked, a gift, a hug.
She was sure she was in love.
By winter of seventh grade, he was sneaking her off in his car for an hour of sex, dropping in on her weekly baby-sitting duties, e-mailing about what clothes she should wear, about his sexual fantasies, about marriage and children.
Mansfield finally got caught by the girl's mother, and his own words convicted him. At his criminal trial in 2004, Heather read his e-mails and instant messages aloud, from declarations of true love to explicit references to past sex. He's serving up to 31 years in state prison.
The growing use of e-mails and text messages is leaving a trail that investigators and prosecutors can use to prove an intimate relationship when other evidence is hard to find.
Even then, many in the community find it difficult to accept that a predator is in their midst. When these cases break, defendants often portray the students as seducers or false accusers. However, every investigator questioned said that is largely a misconception.
"I've been involved in several hundred investigations," says Martin Bates, an assistant superintendent in a Salt Lake City school district. "I think I've seen that just a couple of times ... where a teacher is being pursued by a student."
Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.
"They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated," says Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in teacher sex abuse who heads the educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth University.
It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames — "passing the trash" or the "mobile molester."
Laws in several states require that even an allegation of sexual misconduct be reported to the state departments that oversee teacher licenses. But there's no consistent enforcement, so such laws are easy to ignore.
School officials fear public embarrassment as much as the perpetrators do, Shakeshaft says. They want to avoid the fallout from going up against a popular teacher. They also don't want to get sued by teachers or victims, and they don't want to face a challenge from a strong union.
In the Iowa case, Lindsey agreed to leave without fighting when his bosses kept the reason for his departure confidential. The decades' worth of allegations against him would have stayed secret, if not for Bramow.
Across the country, such deals and lack of information-sharing allow abusive teachers to jump state lines, even when one school does put a stop to the abuse.
While some schools and states have been aggressive about investigating problem teachers and publicizing it when they're found, others were hesitant to share details of cases with the AP — Alabama and Mississippi among the more resistant. Maine, the only state that gave the AP no disciplinary information, has a law that keeps offending teachers' cases secret.
Meanwhile, the reasons given for punishing hundreds of educators, including many in California, were so vague there was no way to tell why they'd been punished, until further investigation by AP reporters revealed it was sexual misconduct.
And in Hawaii, no educators were disciplined by the state in the five years the AP examined, even though some teachers there were serving sentences for various sex crimes during that time. They technically remained teachers, even behind bars.
Elsewhere, there have been fitful steps toward catching errant teachers that may be having some effect. The AP found the number of state actions against sexually abusive teachers rose steadily, to a high of 649 in 2005.
More states now require background checks on teachers, fingerprinting and mandatory reporting of abuse, though there are still loopholes and a lack of coordination among districts and states.
U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the last 20 years on civil rights and sex discrimination have opened schools up to potentially huge financial punishments for abuses, which has driven some schools to act.
And the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification keeps a list of educators who've been punished for any reason, but only shares the names among state agencies.
The uncoordinated system that's developed means some teachers still fall through the cracks. Aaron M. Brevik is a case in point.
Brevik was a teacher at an elementary school in Warren, Mich., until he was accused of using a camera hidden in a gym bag to secretly film boys in locker rooms and showers. He also faced charges that he recorded himself molesting a boy while the child slept.
Found guilty of criminal sexual conduct, Brevik is now serving a five- to 20-year prison sentence and lost his Michigan license in 2005.
What Michigan officials apparently didn't know when they hired him was that Brevik's teaching license in Minnesota had been permanently suspended in 2001 after he allegedly invited two male minors to stay with him in a hotel room. He was principal of an elementary school in southeastern Minnesota at the time.
"I tell you what, they never go away. They just blend a little better," says Steve Janosko, a prosecutor in Ocean County, N.J., who handled the case of a former high school teacher and football coach, Nicholas J. Arminio.
Arminio surrendered his New Jersey teaching license in 1994 after two female students separately accused him of inappropriate touching. The state of Maryland didn't know that when he applied for teaching credentials and took a job at a high school in Baltimore County. He eventually resigned and lost that license, too.
Even so, until this month, he was coaching football at another Baltimore County high school in a job that does not require a teaching license. After the AP started asking questions, he was fired.
Victims also face consequences when teachers are punished.
In Pennsylvania, after news of teacher Troy Mansfield's arrest hit, girls called Kline, his 12-year-old victim, a "slut" to her face. A teacher called her a "vixen." Friends stopped talking to her. Kids no longer sat with her at lunch.
Her abuser, meanwhile, had been a popular teacher and football coach.
So, between rumors that she was pregnant or doing drugs and her own panic attacks and depression, Kline bounced between schools. At 16, she ran away to Nashville.
"I didn't have my childhood," says Kline, who's back home now, working at a grocery cash register and hoping to get her GED so she can go to nursing school. "He had me so matured at so young.
"I remember going from little baby dolls to just being an adult."
The courts dealt her a final insult. A federal judge dismissed her civil suit against the school, saying administrators had no obligation to protect her from a predatory teacher since officials were unaware of the abuse, despite what the court called widespread "unsubstantiated rumors" in the school. The family is appealing.
In Iowa, the state Supreme Court made the opposite ruling in the Bramow case, deciding she and her parents could sue the Cedar Rapids schools for failing to stop Lindsey.
Bramow, now a young mother who waits tables for a living, won a $20,000 judgment. But Lindsey was never criminally charged due to what the former county prosecutor deemed insufficient evidence.
Arthur Sensor, the former superintendent in Oelwein, Iowa, who vividly recalls pressuring Lindsey to quit on Feb. 18, 1964, regrets that he didn't do more to stop him back then.
Now, he says, he'd call the police.
"He promised me he wouldn't do it again — that he had learned. And he was a young man, a beginning teacher, had a young wife, a young child," Sensor, now 86 years old, said during testimony at the Bramows' civil trial.
"I wanted to believe him, and I did."
John Parsons, special projects manager for the AP's News Research Center, contributed to this story.
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Oh, yeah, Hyde likes to "pass the trash" alright.
...Like Lindsey, the perpetrators that the AP found are everyday educators — teachers, school psychologists, principals and superintendents among them. They're often popular and recognized for excellence and, in nearly nine out of 10 cases, they're male. While some abused students in school, others were cited for sexual misconduct after hours that didn't necessarily involve a kid from their classes, such as viewing or distributing child pornography...
The overwhelming majority of cases the AP examined involved teachers in public schools. Private school teachers rarely turn up because many are not required to have a teaching license and, even when they have one, disciplinary actions are typically handled within the school.
...Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.
"They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated," says Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in teacher sex abuse who heads the educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth University.
It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames — "passing the trash" or the "mobile molester."
While some schools and states have been aggressive about investigating problem teachers and publicizing it when they're found, others were hesitant to share details of cases with the AP — Alabama and Mississippi among the more resistant. Maine, the only state that gave the AP no disciplinary information, has a law that keeps offending teachers' cases secret.
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"Mobile Molester!" Par for Hyde's course! :rofl: :rofl:
And Maine has a has a LAW that "keeps offending teachers' cases secret?" No wonder these dorks are still teaching elsewhere. Not that Hyde School would ever feel the compunction to notify anyone anyway. After all, students should be able to "handle themselves."
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Funny that they offered to move your daughter to a different campus -- I had a similar experience.
When I was a student at Hyde, I revealed to the headmaster and other faculty that I had been raped by a former student. Not only was I not offered any support or counseling, but this former student was then hired as an intern at the campus I attended. When I complained, they moved him to the other campus and suggested I write him an e-mail to tell him how I felt about what he had done to me. Btw, he ended up having sex with a student, but Hyde avoided legal trouble on that presumably because she was 18 at the time.
How much more I could write about the added trauma I got from being forced to discuss my rape and other life traumas in a group led by untrained staff. Sadly, some pieces of the school are actually quite good (parents taking responsibility, words and principles, building a strong community), but are so overshadowed by the serious damage of all the misled bullshit. They either need a MAJOR change or to be shut down. Sadly, I don't see either happening in the forseeable future.
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Funny that they offered to move your daughter to a different campus -- I had a similar experience.
When I was a student at Hyde, I revealed to the headmaster and other faculty that I had been raped by a former student. Not only was I not offered any support or counseling, but this former student was then hired as an intern at the campus I attended. When I complained, they moved him to the other campus and suggested I write him an e-mail to tell him how I felt about what he had done to me. Btw, he ended up having sex with a student, but Hyde avoided legal trouble on that presumably because she was 18 at the time.
How much more I could write about the added trauma I got from being forced to discuss my rape and other life traumas in a group led by untrained staff. Sadly, some pieces of the school are actually quite good (parents taking responsibility, words and principles, building a strong community), but are so overshadowed by the serious damage of all the misled bullshit. They either need a MAJOR change or to be shut down. Sadly, I don't see either happening in the forseeable future.
It is simply... absolutely... disgusting the way this organization continues to feed off of any family unfortunate enough to learn of their existence.
Any kid that gets raped, or sexually assaulted, or even unduly sexually harassed the way some kids there have been, needs and deserves some outside therapy and counseling for that trauma. That is the right thing to do.
But does Hyde School even attempt that? Hell NO, 'cuz they'd be out of business in none too short order, were that the case! Think about it: everyone that has ever gone there for any length of time knows of a few such cases. And how many decades has this been going on?
Lemme guess... Did they grind your nose in it and try to get you to "admit" any responsibility ya might have had in getting raped?
Hyde likes to blame the victim and whitewash the perp. After all, the latter has usually "invested more in the process." The place is a c-u-l-t.
Just disgusting. I am so sorry you had to live through that.
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When I was a student at Hyde, I revealed to the headmaster and other faculty that I had been raped by a former student. Not only was I not offered any support or counseling, but this former student was then hired as an intern at the campus I attended. When I complained, they moved him to the other campus and suggested I write him an e-mail to tell him how I felt about what he had done to me.
What did your parents say?
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@none: you should consider submitting your story to ISAC Corp.: http://www.isaccorp.org/ (http://www.isaccorp.org/) There are already a number of Hyde School testimonies there...
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Meanwhile, posted last month on the Wall of FB group hyde school is hell on earth (http://http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2253419519):
haha my parents finally let me go home after one of the girls in my wing got gang-raped and mccrann told everyone if we said anything to our parents we would be in more trouble than we'd ever known. obviously i told my parents, and look what happened? mccrann got fired and now i'm home doing whatever i want. to the people who liked hyde in 05-06- FUCK YOU. you're idiots.[/list]
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Meanwhile, posted last month on the Wall of FB group hyde school is hell on earth (http://http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2253419519):
haha my parents finally let me go home after one of the girls in my wing got gang-raped and mccrann told everyone if we said anything to our parents we would be in more trouble than we'd ever known. obviously i told my parents, and look what happened? mccrann got fired and now i'm home doing whatever i want. to the people who liked hyde in 05-06- FUCK YOU. you're idiots.[/list]
I found the comment very telling.
It seems the key is to tell your parents if a problem occurs and they can contact the proper authorities to deal with it. If you tell someone within the same organization you may not get a swift response (or a negative response). We have seen this way too often in other organizations and public school systems. You cant run to the police if the police are the problem!
...
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I know about more than my share of this through various contacts. I have friends who once were there om campus
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Meanwhile, posted last month on the Wall of FB group hyde school is hell on earth (http://http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2253419519):
haha my parents finally let me go home after one of the girls in my wing got gang-raped and mccrann told everyone if we said anything to our parents we would be in more trouble than we'd ever known. obviously i told my parents, and look what happened? mccrann got fired and now i'm home doing whatever i want. to the people who liked hyde in 05-06- FUCK YOU. you're idiots.[/list]
I found the comment very telling.
It seems the key is to tell your parents if a problem occurs and they can contact the proper authorities to deal with it. If you tell someone within the same organization you may not get a swift response (or a negative response). We have seen this way too often in other organizations and public school systems. You cant run to the police if the police are the problem!
What *I* found especially telling is that the part you chose to emphasize in the quote ... had absolutely nothing to do with your subsequent comment. Were you attempting to undermine the credubility of the original poster ... by certain insinuations?
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I know about more than my share of this through various contacts. I have friends who once were there om campus
Care to share some of what you know, Mr. Magee?
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In case you couldn't read the above post near the beginning because the type was HUGE, someone wrote:
- Diddler Dubinsky, accused of sexual assault;
- Ken Grant, heavy honcho school official, doesn't want the school to be held liable, friend of Diddler and Diddler's wife;
- Judy Fortier, Hyde staff and sycophant, friend of Claire and Ken Grant, friend of Diddler and Diddler's wife, husband also used to work at Hyde but allegedly left "because of a pronounced proclivity to ogle undergrads;"
- unidentified male Hyde staff #1, Hyde apologist whether he wants to be or not;
- unidentified male Hyde staff #2, Hyde apologist whether he wants to be or not;
- perhaps others.
- victim, underage, family is far away and has not been informed.
Ummm... something seems a bit OFF about this picture. Two things rear up in my mind, other than the incredibly disparate blocks of personnel (just squint your eyes and look at that screen).[/i]
And, in case you couldn't read what Ursus wrote on another thread regarding Larry Dubinsky, former dean of students and his alleged sexual misconduct, (Hyde settled and paid the Hiler family) and "star" of Hiler v Hyde, here are the links to the summary: https://ia800202.us.archive.org/2/items/gov.uscourts.ctd.18684/gov.uscourts.ctd.18684.docket.html and https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/1e0g0oy6/connecticut-district-court/hiler-v-hyde-school/ and here is what Ursus transcribed from photos of the case into text:
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
XXXX XXXX VS. HYDE SCHOOL AT WOODSTOCK
CIVIL ACTION NO.
MARCH 5, 2002
COMPLAINT
1. This is an action by a female student against a private school which, upon information and belief, is the recipient of federal funds, for tolerating and encouraging a pattern of sexual misconduct directed against her and other female students by a male faulty member, over a long period of time.
2. Jurisdiction of this court is invoked under the provisions of Sections 1331, 1343(3) and 1367(a) of Title 28 of the United States Code and this court's supplementary and diversity jurisdiction over the plaintiff's causes of action under state law.
3. The plaintiff is an adult female citizen of the State of XXXXX. She was born on XXX and at all times mentioned herein was an out-of-state student at the defendant's school in Woodstock, Connecticut.
4. The defendant is a private school located in Woodstock, Connecticut. Upon information and belief, the defendant receives federal financial assistance for the operation of its educational and related programs.
5. The amount at issue in this case is greater than seventy-five thousand dollars, exclusive of interest and costs.
6. In 2001, and for several years prior thereto, the defendant employed at its school in Woodstock an adult male teacher by the name of Larry Dubinsky. At all times mentioned herein, said Dubinsky was acting as the agent, servant, and employee of the defendant, within the scope of his employment and agency, and for the defendant's financial benefit.
7. For several years prior to and including the events described hereinafter, the defendant, through its administrators and officials, had actual knowledge that Dubinsky was subjecting the female students at Hyde School to sexual harassment which included inappropriate touching, staring, and comments. Despite such actual knowledge, the defendant retained Dubinsky on its faculty and permitted him to continue to have daily, direct and unsupervised contact with the adolescent female students at the school, including the plaintiff.
8. During the second week of July, 2001, at the school, Dubinsky initiated a "role-playing" incident with the plaintiff in the course of which he insisted upon having full body contact with the plaintiff, repeatedly and over her objection, while making lewd and inappropriate comments to her which included the phrase "fucking pussy".
9. On August 1, 2001, while instructing a dance routine in which the plaintiff was involved, Dubinsky required the plaintiff to be his partner and to dance with him. He required her to bend down in front of him, then lifted her, raised her blouse, felt around her body for her hips and placed his hands on her hips. When the plaintiff objected and moved away from him, he attempted to coerce her into continuing.
10. When the plaintiff complained to the defendants administrators about the aforesaid misconduct, she was summoned to a meeting at which she was required to meet with Dubinsky and was criticized by administrators for not wanting to look at Dubinsky during the meeting. The following day, she was summoned to yet another meeting with administrators, which the administrators concealed from her parents. When school officials were informed in September of 2001 that the plaintiff was suffering from recurring nightmares regarding Dubinsky, a faculty member falsely accused the plaintiff of flirting with another male teacher. Her mother's pleas to the defendant's highest administrators that Dubinsky be kept away from the plaintiff and not allowed on school grounds were rejected. In February of 2002, the plaintiff was required to serve as a waitress at a party given by the defendant's headmaster at which other under-age students were required to serve alcoholic beverages. Dubinsky was an invited guest at that party.
11. In the manner described above, the defendant has, on the basis of the plaintiff's sex, excluded her from participation in, denied her the benefits of, and/or subjected her to discrimination under an education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance in violation of Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, Sections 1681 - 1688 of Title 20 of the United States Code.
12. In the manner described above, the defendant through its aforesaid agent subjected the plaintiff to assault and battery on each of the two separate occasions described above, in violation of Connecticut state law.
13. The conduct of the defendant and its agent described above was extreme and outrageous and was carried out with the knowledge that it probably would cause the plaintiff to suffer emotional distress.
14. In the manner described above, the defendant further acted in negligent disregard of the probability that its conduct would cause the plaintiff, like any person of ordinary sensibilities similarly situated, to suffer emotional distress so severe that physical illness could result.
15. As a direct and proximate result of the acts and omissions of the defendant described above, the plaintiff has suffered severe emotional distress.
WHEREFORE, the plaintiff claims judgment against the defendant for compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney fees and costs.
CLAIM FOR JURY TRIAL
The plaintiff claims trial by jury.
THE PLAINTIFF
BY:______________
JOHN R. WILLIAMS
Federal Bar No. ct00215
Williams and Pattis, LLC
51 Elm Street
New Haven, CT 06510
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Her Attorney