Great is the Truth and it Prevails (“Magna est Veritas et Praevalet”): The Truth Will Set Us Free (Veritas nos Liberabit”)
Over nearly four decades, almost two generations, sex abuse was the instrument of systemic moral corruption at the Horace Mann School, an elite bastion of superb teaching and educational excellence in New York City. Many contend that New York is the financial and cultural center of the world: a hub of creativity, arts, finance, medicine, law, science, real estate development, and talent across nearly limitless dimensions.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, one out of 3 girls is sexually abused in America by the age of 18. One out of 7 boys suffers the same fate by the time they reach 18. Only 30 % of the cases are ever reported to authorities.
Amos Kamil, a Horace Mann alumnus, had the courage and will to break the story in the New York Times Magazine Section on June 6, 2012. A poetic choice of dates I might add. The Allies landed on the Normandy Beaches nearly 70 years ago to begin their push to rid Europe of tyranny. Kamil’s story was entitled “Prep-School Predators: The Horace Mann School’s Secret History of Sexual Abuse.” Going forward the New York Post, the Daily News, and the Riverdale Press have covered the story with journalistic professionalism and aplomb.
Marc Fisher, another alumnus, published an article in the venerable New Yorker Magazine on April 1, 2013 entitled “The Master: A Charismatic Teacher Enthralled his Students. Was He Abusing Them?” Fisher’s piece is beautifully conceptualized and written. It portrays a culture of seduction, emotional and physical surrender, psychological manipulation, degradation, favoritism, and the power tactics of a “popular” and revered English teacher, Robert Berman. It’s a must read.
Horace Mann’s motto (“Great is the Truth and It Prevails”) acknowledges respect for traditional classical values. It is the writer’s contention that truth is curative, and it can liberate Horace Mann (“The Truth Will Set Us Free”). Let us be reminded that first Plato, then St. John, and finally Thomas Jefferson all contended “And yet ye shall learn the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
Western civilization began with the ancient Greeks. Virtue, ethics, moral philosophy, the scientific method, rational inquiry, and the Socratic Method were orders of the day. They still need to be.
Horace Mann’s motto implies the sanctity of moral excellence, which is virtue. The classical Western virtues are: temperance, prudence, courage, and justice. For the Samurai virtue was defined by four daily vows: never to be outdone in the way of the Samurai, to be of good use to the master, to be filial to one’s parents, and to manifest compassion and act for the sake of Man.
We can all learn from these differential world-views, especially in the current context. The decency of human behavior transcends cultures and history. There are universal truths and codes that are righteous regardless of one’s background, zip-code, class status, or point in history.
How could Horace Mann’s “open secret” have permeated its culture for such a tragically long period of time? Denial, avoidance, sadism, and cruelty must have been pathologically commonplace in Horace Mann’s culture. Hidden, but paradoxically tolerated. The Bronx DA’s office’s findings corroborate these observations, but they are seemingly hamstrung by stipulations regarding statutes of limitation.
Seemingly, and unwittingly, Horace Mann adapted an artistic movement, Surrealism, to mask the institutionalization of criminal behavior for nearly 40 years. Surrealism works to resolve the contradictory conditions of reality and dreams, unexpected juxtapositions, and non sequiturs in art, not in real life. Real lives have been unraveled at Horace Mann. Suicides have occurred. The emotional cost and psychological damage are practically incalculable.
To what end, to what purpose, what were the emotional drivers, how could such an open secret have had so much power and control over so long a time span for so many people: Thousands! These are questions and issues which will preoccupy Horace Mann for years, and they will challenge the school’s viability and mission.
The answers to these questions, and the manner in which responsibility and reparations for crushed lives are met, will determine Horace Mann’s long term sustainability.
Schools are like families. Everyone knows everything. Consciously or unconsciously. Common knowledge. To think otherwise is to be naïve and/or in denial. All human beings and institutions have defensive structures. These mechanisms help us survive, to a point. But at what price? What cost? What pain, anguish, and suffering?
Sex abuse creates betrayal trauma. It is fueled by obedience to authority and bystander apathy psychology. These clusters of human experience have massive bodies of research literature which bolster their painful realities. Psychological researchers (Jennifer Freyd, StanleyMilgram and Bibb Latane, respectively) have masterfully explored these critically important human experiences. Specific findings are easily sourced on the internet. Students at Horace Mann were betrayed, they surrendered to authority, and bystanders (administration and faculty) stood by blind fully.
Exploring and understanding the dynamics of any situation is important for a myriad of reasons. One must comprehend how a syndrome has developed in order to promote healing and ultimately obtain closure. And then appropriate patterns of healthy behavior can be created going forward. The process/the cure cannot be short shifted and bastardized/cheapened in any manner. Obviously, the Horace Mann case is a “case in point.”
So far, some of the dynamics of the case involve the following psychological and behavioral constructs: image/brand mongering, competition, rivalry, status, materialism, power, money, control, envy, jealousy, malignant narcissism, rage, self-interest, “entitlements,” group psychosis, elitism, seduction, hero worship, icon building, superiority scenarios/drama, power distance mechanisms, and the destruction of values and societal norms. And of course: rationalization.
In ancient Greece, the aristocracy was a form of government in which power existed in the hands of a few: the privileged ruling class. The term is derived from the Greek “arisokratia” meaning “rule of the best.” Power, control, and privilege lubricated the prerogatives of the ruling class.
This concept is operational today at Horace Mann considered to be one of the “best” prep schools in America according to Forbes Magazine. Attitudinal structures underscore behavior, and ultimately its consequences. We (people) must be accountable for our (their) actions. Values and belief systems drive behavior. “Onlookers” to criminal behavior are accessories technically and morally. The Horace Mann School has been an extension of the ruling class in New York City, in America, for generations. Even privilege has limits, and those limits are being tested dearly on the Horace Mann campus, in the courts and in the Horace Mann board room.
On a technical level, it is hard to imagine, as a function of an understanding of human nature and risk management paradigms, that fraudulent concealment on behalf of the school’s Administration does not color/hamper the investigation. Hundreds of people (staff and students) had to have known what was going on for years. Legally, demonstration of fraudulent concealment (cover up, destruction of evidence) can obviate statutes of limitations.
Based on a cursory awareness of probability theory it’s logically and mathematically “impossible” for this writer to fathom that the Horace Mann community was “emotionally and observationally brain dead” for nearly two generations (almost 40 years). And had no awareness of the rampant sex abuse and emotional tyranny on and off the campus. Apparently, European school trips were a target rich environment for seduction and abuse. This position (“blinders” while Rome is burning) defies both logic and imagination.
Healing. Transitions. Growth. Discharge of massive pain and anger. All these issues need to be worked through over time at Horace Mann.
How did all this happen? And why at Horace Mann, a center of educational excellence? No one has yet defined the etiology and dynamics fully enough. No one. At this juncture no one is close. In order to create models of healing and prevention, it is essential to understand what happened at Horace Mann in depth. If not, the threat of abuse resurfacing is real, and the spirit of the community can never regenerate/genuinely heal.
The adversarial stalemate between the Board of Trustees and the Horace Mann Coalition is deep, wide, and painful. Under this regimen healing is impossible. This is regrettable to say the least.
We (you) are all in this together. Adversarial tactics and mentality is inherently self-defeating and counter-productive. The truth will set us (you) free. Then, and only then, can the deep healing and rehabilitation required by these obscene events have any hope of being achieved.
The Latin root of “rehabilitation” means to restore dignity. Dignity has been lost at this venerable institution. The current situation represents the sullying of a valued image honed over more than a century. This ‘fall from grace’ required massive denial on the part of the school’s administrators and faculty who seemingly surrendered their formerly assumed responsibility and judgment.
Understanding the origins of, and fully defeating, systemic moral corruption is a core process necessary for Horace Mann’s survival, and future growth and prosperity.
Recently, a host of Board members have abandoned ship apparently as a function of the hard line stance of the Chairman, Steven Friedman. The piper must be paid in order to move forward. Settling ‘on the cheap’ may appear to work short term, but equity will not be honored and genuine healing won’t be accomplished. Otherwise the school’s moral sustainability remains under siege. The façade may appear intact, but the core illness will persist making true recovery impossible. Faulty “memory systems” and denial can only take an institution so far. Horace Mann’s bill must be paid. Who else should pay their bill? It happened on their watch, in their culture, at their school.
Why not consider thinking along the lines of the BP Oil Spill and the 9/11 Victims Restitution Board. The key is to obtain the unfettered truth with complete and public acknowledgment by Horace Mann. This process is essential to any genuine healing.
What is needed is Eos (the Greek Goddess of the Dawn) which can shed pure light, empathy, and tenderness on the healing process for the Horace Mann community which has suffered for so long. Coincidentally, and ironically, EOS is the title of a hedge fund Chairman Freidman launched after a distinguished career on Wall Street.
Horace Mann requires moral excellence (virtue) at this point in her history. And it is a rich history with abundant legacy. Noted graduates include: Robert Caro, Roy Cohn, Jennifer Fleiss, Robert Heilbroner, Jack Kerouac, Tom Lehrer, Ira Levin, Samuel Newhouse, Renee Richards, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Gertrude Weil, and many others.
Courage and justice need to be orders of today. Compassion and action in good faith for the sake of the Horace Mann community are required, or stasis will rule. Truth must prevail for Horace Mann. One cannot take the school’s sacred motto lightly as it encapsulated the beliefs and ideals of the school’s founders in 1887.
Horace Mann has been a powerhouse in its role as a leader in the American independent school movement. Now we need to come full circle. There is a unique opportunity here to forge new ground in terms of setting standards behaviorally, morally, and spiritually for students and teachers throughout the country. The outrage and pain endured at Horace Mann can be transmogrified into innovative programming with far reaching implications. Then, and only then can the anguish of the community dissipate, and Horace Mann can truly welcome a new dawn.
Heretofore, it seems that Horace Mann’s fundamental mission and posture has been to protect their brand, their enviable image blessed with training/educating the “best and the brightest.” Similar to the Penn State tragedy, profit has appeared to trump principle at Horace Mann. The school is an industry, similar to the “culture industry” coined by the German critical theorist, Theodor Adorno. Self-interest, endowment, brand, image, legacy, status, and reputation have been, and are, more important than morality, virtue, and reparations. This is a platform of cowardice. Nothing less, nothing more.
We live in a digital age with instant communication and exposure. What happened at Penn State, Poly Prep Country Day School (Brooklyn), and Horace Mann is etched on the internet in perpetuity as well as in the hearts, minds, bodies, and spirit of the victims. We must rise from the ashes and create a new dawn with pure light, empathy, and tenderness for all the victims and for the entire Horace Mann community moving forward. Horace Mann needs to come full circle. Shortcuts, detours, stonewalling just won’t even remotely repair the catastrophic damage. Unfettered truth and nothing but the truth!
Postscript: On May 23, 2014, The Daily Beast reported new empirical findings in an article by Charlotte Lytton entitled “Study Finds Pedophiles’ Brains Wired to Find Children Attractive.” Brain imaging research by Jorge Ponseti at the University of Kiel (Germany) suggests possible diagnosis of pedophiles in the future before they abuse children. The data, published in Biology Letters found that the relevant cerebral areas of pedophiles are stimulated/engaged when they see children, not adults. This inverted subject of desire suggests differential cognitive wiring in sex offenders substantiating a neural pattern underneath their behavior. Going forward, perhaps MRI studies can screen out potential pedophiles in the education/teacher selection process. James Cantor at the University of Toronto has described “pedophilia as a ‘cross-wiring’ of sexual and nurturing instincts.” This is an important consideration in this writer’s opinion considering the plague of sex abuse in our country.
May 25, 2014
Christopher Bayer, Ph.D.
Psychologist & Psychoanalyst
NYU Post-Doctoral Psychology Program, 1982
1324 Lexington Avenue, Suite 225
New York, New York 10128
Mobile: 516.330.6051
Dr. Bayer was a psychological consultant for nearly a year (2012) on the Poly Prep Sex Abuse case. Kevin Mulhearn, Esq., was the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. The case was settled in December. Federal Court Judge Frederic Block had the courage, resolve, and integrity to proceed with the case based on Poly Prep’s possible fraudulent concealment of evidence. At Poly Prep the head football coach had brutally abused hundreds of boys over a 25 year period. And the Administration was aware of this fact.
EPILOGUE
Leslie Crocker-Snyder, Esq., a distinguished jurist is conducting an independent investigation of the Horace Mann case. She is a former Judge who was trained at Radcliffe College and Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law. As an ADA in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office she had the insight and courage to create the Sex Crimes Prosecution Bureau. She also co-authored New York State’s Rape Shield Law. Her career is legendary, and she is above reproach. She is working closely with the Horace Mann Coalition in an effort to discover exactly what happened over four decades in this elite, legendary academy of educational excellence.