An Open Letter to Phillips Exeter Academy

I never attended your legendary academy but I feel connected to you nonetheless.

I recall my first visit to the authorities in Exeter and flipping through Phillips Exeter yearbooks in search of one of Larry Lane Bateman's teenage male victims who I would recognize. This young man, who we'll call AR in this letter (AR are not his initials), had not been protected by the PEA administration at the time. Like my public high school on Long Island, no one bothered to read Bateman's dissertation that celebrates older male teachers seducing/sexualizing/perpetrating younger male students. Why didn't you, Phillips Exeter Academy? Laziness? Arrogance? For the cream of the crop, you couldn't have been more dumb.

Moreover, you kept on staff Hal Lynch, Bateman's former college student and longtime domestic partner for an additional 25 years after Bateman's conviction. Apparently you didn't care to attend Lane's trial and listen to Hal's testimony. It was a doozy, as the independent counsel you hired to investigate fifty years of abuses at Phillips Exeter Academy learned and recommended Lynch's dismissal, which happened promptly. AR anonymously wrote to the PEA community that Hal Lynch had to know that Bateman was perping AR. Along the way, AR, who everyone in the Exeter knows the identity and have bent over backwards to keep his identity out of press, got a 7-figure check from PEA (everyone knows the amount as well), ostesibly to protect RA's profile DC career. (Hal Lynch sued PEA and the judge did not believe him; his case went down in flames.)

I have two questions for Phillips Exeter Academy, which I will probably never get answers to:

1) Would you have preferred I kept my mouth shut? I've never heard from you, no thank you, no nothing. If I hadn't have turned Bateman in, there would have been more victims. Heck, during his trial there was a male teenage Exeter student who had that look in his eye, that "Bateman is god gleen and how can you do this to him" look at me. Quick reality check: Bateman was a prodigious user of pedophile chat rooms in the late 80's. Populated by many FBI agents, it was only a matter of time before Bateman was stung, and everyone in his rolodex, including Hal Lynch, AR, myself and others were served search warrants; the FBI wouldn't have cared who was a victim or just an innocent bystander, Lynch would not have had 25 more years at Exeter, AR's future prospects would have been ruined. You're welcome.

2) What are you doing today to protect Phillips Exeter Academy students? Your knee-jerk reaction was to replace Larry Lane Bateman with a heterosexual teacher with family and kids, very wholesome, indeed. And means nothing. Predators mostly hide in broad daylight as pied-piper "never could imagine" he or she would be buggering our kids, yet most of the time it's the outwardly looking "normal" that are doing the perping. Lane was an outlier. So the question remains, what are you doing? Here's what I think you must do: Educate students: appropriate versus inappropriate communication, the definition of grooming, what to do and who to talk to if a teacher or staff is causing emotional, mental or physical discomfort. Does the student have a crush on a teacher; this needs to be explored openly and honestly, without judgement or shame but a clear understanding that it is inappropriate to seek a romantic or sexual relationship with a teacher. Encourage open communication with your students via twice yearly 1-1 conferences. Has the student identified a teacher crossing boundaries? Is anything off? As for on-campus activities, there must be a checks and balances in the dorms, not one dorm-master but two; teachers who live in dorms are subject to unannouned checks and searches. PEA is a private institution. Build checks and searches into the contracts or via amendments to contracts. If the employee doesn't like it, they can leave. There's 10 prospects vying for their job. It's time to make student safety paramount. If teacher or staff have nothing to hide, they've got nothing to worry about. So, Phillips Exeter Academy, are you doing anything like these measures? You're welcome.