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.
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) |
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.
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.
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.
17 July 2012
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018To 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 |