You Are Not Alone

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The two of us first learned of each other’s experiences – in early 2011, decades after the abuse took place. We found that it was deeply healing for us to be able to talk with each other. We had both suffered in silence for decades, wondering whether we were the only ones, so it was deeply meaningful to learn that we were not alone. Our conversations were painful because they brought up humiliating memories, but it was a good kind of pain – the kind that heals.

When Amos Kamil began researching his June 10, 2012 article in the New York Times Magazine, he found his way to us, and we were happy to help with his article. If you have not already read that article, please read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/magazine/the-horace-mann-schools-secret-history-of-sexual-abuse.html. We know that many who read that article will experience both pain (as their own memories come rushing back) and relief (as they realize that they are not alone).

We also wish to serve close family members and loved-ones of abuse survivors at Horace Mann. We know that you too may be hurting and wondering how to help your loved-ones who were abused.

If you yourself were abused at Horace Mann, or if someone you know was abused at Horace Mann, we welcome you here – whether under a pseudonym or under your real name. We invite you to post comments about your experience. To post comments, you must sign in below, but you can create a pseudonymous Gmail account to do so if you prefer. We want to make this as safe a space as is possible on the internet for such a sensitive topic. To that end, comments will be moderated. We will do our best to delete comments we believe are abusive or harmful, but we will not delete comments just because we may disagree with them. Please note that this site is NOT a place to post unsubstantiated rumors you may have heard about one or another Horace Mann teacher if you yourself cannot bear witness to their truth. If you yourself had an experience, or if someone you know had an experience, we welcome you to share that here, but please do not post mere gossip. We had many wonderful teachers at Horace Mann, and we do not want to malign teachers who were innocent of any wrongdoing.

A Message from Joan Bowen

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Retired Horace Mann math teacher and administrator Joan Bowen, who was much loved by many students, wrote the following email to Joseph Cumming of the Survivors’ Group. She gave us permission to post her email both here and in the HM-related Facebook groups.

Dear Joseph,

As I have mentioned before, I do not know how to use Facebook. When I try to post a comment it does not show up and when I think I am sending an individual e mail it appears on the whole site. I am concerned that some alums are disquieted by the silence of teachers.

My feelings are strong on the abuse subject The few retired faculty with whom I am in contact share my views. The others may dislike Facebook as I do. Alums should not assume a lack of support for the victims or support for the School’s silence on the matter from their silence on Facebook. How could anyone not be outraged by the deeds of evil teachers and the ensuing cover-ups?

I am ashamed that the institution at which I taught for some 34 years has maintained silence on the subject and not led the way in investigating what happened, apologizing not only to the abused but also to the rest of the school community, and providing help to those who have suffered. One of my great concerns is that the current sex abuse education given to students does not stress the fact that pedophiles make their prey feel “special” and that it all has to be kept “secret”. Teenagers generally do not like to confide in their parents; this is part of growing up. I cherish my memories of Horace Mann. The students who were so bright and eager to learn, and the faculty who inspired them made the place a really great school. No student ever came to me to report abuse and I never heard of cover-ups in all those years. Every day I expect an announcement of investigation, acknowledgment, apology, and assistance to those abused by employees of Horace Mann. But none has been forthcoming. I hope the Board will soon take action.

You may post any, all, or none of the above as you see fit. Bless you for all your good work.

Joan

Dr. Tom Kelly Expresses Support for Markey Bill

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In response to queries from alumni, Dr. Tom Kelly, Horace Mann’s Head of School, has written expressing support for the Child Victims Act (commonly known as the “Markey Bill”) proposed by NY State Assemblywoman Margaret Markey. Dr. Kelly has given us permission to post the text of his email here. If you would like to know more about the Markey Bill, please visit www.nychildvictimsact.org. At the following site you can also see videos of testimony at a NY State Assembly hearing on the Markey Bill: http://www.youtube.com/user/HMActionCoalition.

Below is the text of Dr. Kelly’s email about the Markey Bill.

Thomas M. Kelly

Thomas M. Kelly

In response to your question about the Markey bill, yes, I’m a supporter, but one who continues to feel that the bill in its current form falls short and does little to address long-standing conflicts with the two primary child abuse reporting laws in New York State. As you may remember, I am a former director of both a residential school for students with profound learning/developmental/social-emotional needs and a state-run children’s psychiatric hospital. In its current form, the Markey bill does not give relief to those students abused while attending a government funded program/school. Given my own professional experience, I feel it would be a huge injustice to ignore this portion of the student population in New York State, when, in fact, they represent some of our neediest kids. And yes, I do understand the difficulty in getting around the “notice requirement” associated with any claim filed against a government entity. Ideally, I would’ve preferred to see Markey’s earlier bill lead the charge as it did attempt to address the “notice requirement” associated with students abused in a government funded program. … and I do understand that Markey’s bill cannot address all of my concerns given the setting in which her bill takes flight. Regardless, and as shared previously, I’ve always been a supporter of any attempt to move the ball down the field in terms of more stringent child abuse prevention and reporting laws.

Beyond the Markey bill, I continue to be amazed by our elected officials’ ongoing confusion over the mandated reporting laws in New York State. As accurately described in the Bronx DA’s most recent press release, both reporting laws are critically flawed, and beyond the flaws noted, they fail to include coaches. I’m not sure what it will take for our elected officials to sit up and fix these flaws, but something needs to happen.

The Board of Trustees is aware of the fact that I am a supporter of any legislative attempts to tighten the child abuse prevention and reporting laws.

Hope the above info answers your question.

Best wishes always,

Tom

Thomas M. Kelly, Ph.D.
Head of School

New Coverage: Robert Berman article in The New Yorker

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Berman, Robert

Marc Fisher (HM ’76) has published a lengthy look at the career of English teacher Robert Berman in the April 1, 2013 issue of The New Yorker: A Sex-Abuse Scandal at Horace Mann:

…what about Mr. Berman—this odd, secretive man who frightened away many students, yet retired to a house that former students bought for him? He wasn’t mentioned in the Times stories, but he may have been the greatest enigma of all.

The full contents of the article are graphic and may be triggering for abuse survivors.

Child sexual abuse remains hidden, often for years

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As revelations about Jimmy Savile fill the news — another tragic case of an abuser using his position to lure children —Kathryn Westcott & Tom de Castella published an excellent article in the BBC News Magazine (25 Oct) explaining why these cases take so long to come to light.  In ‘The decades-long shadow of abuse’ Westcott & Castella discuss the re-traumatizing effect of not being believed once abuse survivors come forward, in a way continuing abusers’ psychological power to harm their victims years, even decades, later.

The decades-long shadow of abuse

In an earlier insightful article in the New Yorker magazine (24 Sep), ‘In Plain View: How child molesters get away with it,’ Malcolm Gladwell — focusing, among other examples, on the Sandusky case — also addresses why these cases take so long to become known .

In Plain View: How child molesters get away with it

When monsters roam free, we assume that people in positions of authority ought to be able to catch them if only they did their jobs. But that might be wishful thinking. — Malcolm Gladwell (2012)

Raped by a Teacher

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Published online today, Daily Beast reporter, Abigail Pesta, shares a heartbreaking story of a young woman who was raped by her teacher while a student at Horace Mann in the 1980s.

Raped by a Teacher: One Woman’s Tragic Past at the Horace Mann School

Warning: This is painful reading. Years of sexual and emotional abuse are described. Bravely and generously the victim,  now an adult, shares these awful experiences.  Not only is her strength inspirational, but her story helps us to understand why it is so difficult for children to come forward and seek help.

Response to the August 6th letter from Horace Mann School Board of Trustees

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The following is the official survivors’ group response to the letter issued this morning by Steven M. Friedman, Chair, Horace Mann School Board of Trustees:

The survivors of sexual abuse at the Horace Mann School welcome outreach by the Board of Trustees, although we are disappointed in the amount of time it took the Board to generate a response to our requests, which we first made on June 21, 2012.

While any gesture of outreach is positive, we are disappointed as well that this response does not address the requests we made in June and have repeated since: an apology from the institution, compensation for the survivors, and an independent investigation.

The investigation by the Bronx District Attorney’s office does not constitute an independent investigation according to established best practices. Nor does the NYPD investigation, also in progress. These investigations are not voluntary. The model for an independent investigation is the Freeh Report conducted by Penn State, which was voluntary, was funded by the school itself, and was not restricted by any constraints, such as the statute of limitations, on its ability to see its inquiry through to its conclusions. An independent investigation conducted by special outside counsel retained by the School for that purpose is especially appropriate and necessary in light of the facts that have come to light concerning the involvement of predecessor School Heads and Boards of Trustees in failing to respond to and/or suppressing reports of sexual abuse. These failures and suppressions would not necessarily be the subject of the DA’s or NYPD investigation.

We are disappointed as we have been in the past that the School and the Board choose to communicate in detail with the community as a whole before communicating in any substantive way with us.

We continue to assert our requests, and hope that a fully satisfactory response will be forthcoming from the School and the Board in future.

Statement from the Survivors Group

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The following is the full text of the statement issued today by the survivor group to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal about independent initiatives:

The survivors of sexual abuse at the Horace Mann School welcome any and all initiatives that individuals are willing to undertake on our behalf. We ask that people who want to support us consult with us first, since we can help guide these initiatives to make sure they best support our needs. We note that no individual act can substitute for action by the school itself. We continue to ask that the Horace Mann School administration and Board of Trustees honor our request for an apology, compensation and an independent investigation.

Letter from More than 100 Horace Mann Alumni Sent to the New York Times today

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17 July 2012

The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018

To the editor:

In private communication with more than two thousand Horace Mann School alumni, we have learned of many more instances of sexual abuse by past teachers. We are shocked by their sheer brutality and number. The school has not acknowledged the truth of the abuses, but we can. We call for an independent, thorough investigation.

We have urged the school to apologize to our classmates who were abused and we are appalled that those school trustees who were aware of abuses at the time and ignored them, as recorded in the New York Times, have not resigned. We have demanded their removal.

Justice and healing can begin with accountability, transparency and truth.

[This letter is signed below by one hundred Horace Mann alumni from the classes of 1959 through 2007]
David Ambaras ’79
Andrew M Ansorge ’70
Mary Louise Cannon Apadula ’79
Abigail Aronson ’87
Kate Aurthur, ’87
Ed Beck ’64
Stephen Beer ’79
Sarah Birnbaum, ’87
Peter Blum ’70
Gordon Bock ’72
Alexander N. Bossy ’83
Clifford Brody ’75
Peter Brooks ’66
Allan Burke ’67
Jeremy Burns ’93
David Buskin, ’61
Herb Callender ’76
Nicholas V. Chen ’75
Charles Chessler ’79
Alex Citron ’71
Elizabeth B. Cooper ’79
Fosca D’Acierno ’88
Julie Shmalo Datnow ’87
Sara Rosenfeld Dassel ’85
Rachel Dickstein 88
Betsy Drapkin
Michelle Dumitriu ’95
Clare Dooley 85
Arthur Drooker ’72
Skylar R.H. Fein ’86
Martin Fenton ’72
Carole Kline Feuer ’79
Stephen L. Fife ’71
Mark Finkel ‘72
Eric R. Finkelman ’75.
Hal Fischer ’68
Margaret L. Frank ’78
Jessica Fridman ’91
Kate Geis ’87
Geoffrey H. Genth ’82
Patrick Gibson of 78
Jessica Gould
jeremy szold ginzberg ’69
Robin Gise ’90
Vicki Lan Goldstone ’90.
Laurie Gordon MD ’87
Peter Greer ’71
Lisa Grossman ’92
Debbie Gruber ’87
David Gutterman ’84
John Haber ’72
Ele Hamburger ’83
Dean Harris ’68
Albert Herskovits
Jonathan Himoff ‎’81
Lance Hoffman ’75
Rob Hollander ’72		 Elizabeth Leef Jacobson ’79
Jen Kaminsky ’95
Sam Kanter ’64
Gerard Kiernan ’85
Kim Dooley Kittay ’87
Jay Kooper ’91
LarryKurzner ’79
Edward Lay ’78
Marc Lerner ’89
Merrill Lewen ‎’80
Rebecca Linden ’85
Chris Macri ’89
Joshua Malina ’84.
Gregory Mishkin ’88
Michael S Mishkin ’59
Erica Modugno ’89
Jodi Nass ’78
catherine newman ’83
Robert Nisonoff ’82
Mariana Olenko ’85
Peter M. Oppenheimer, Ph.D. ’75
Cari Lewis-Osborne ’88
Joseph R. Osborne’88
Michelle Packles ’90
Kirsten Paige ‎’07
Jamie Parish ’79
Peter Park ’89
Elizabeth Slaybaugh Picard ’85
Alison Pollet ’86
Dean Preston ’87
Christina Propst ’87
Gita Rebbapragada, ’95
Narasu Rebbapragada ’89
Umaa Rebbapragada ‎’93
Michael Rosen ’79
Charlotte Rosenberg ’83
Debby Rovine ’87
Josh Russell ’75
Marina Rustow ‎’86
Joanna Samuels ’88
Shira Sanders ‎’81
Suzanne Schecter ’80
Mitch Schonfeld ’73
Allison Schultz ’84
Rachel Schwartz ’87
Tom Seidner ’70
Jen Slaybaugh ’88
Mark Allen Smith ’68
Gustavus Stadler ’84
Natasha Steinhardt ’90
James Strickler ’66
Alice Swenson, ’89
Alexander Turoff ’84
David Vogel ’73
Raphael Winick, ’84
Sophia Ahsen Wolf ’85
Jennifer Berman Yoken ’89

Horace Mann Sexual Abuse Surviviors Send Second Letter to School’s Board of Trustees

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The Survivors’ Letter was delivered to the Board of Trustees on June 21st. After three weeks, the Board has failed to respond.

We have received no acknowledgment of our letter, nor any indication of when or whether we will ever receive a personal response. We have received no gesture of compassion or caring from the Board of Trustees.

Today, the Survivors sent a Second Survivors’ Letter.

Links: