Officials at the elite Phillips Exeter Academy — one of America’s premier private schools — are under fire for making a string of questionable choices in handling several sexual misconduct cases on the campus.
One of them was to encourage an accused groper to bring baked goods to his victim every week — as “an act of penance” — as opposed to reporting the assault to the police, according to the Boston Globe‘s Spotlight team.
The school’s minister, Reverend Robert Thompson, believed this would give Chkwudi “Chudi” Ikpeazu, a promising student and track captain, an opportunity to take responsibility for his wrongdoings. But if the victim, Michaella Henry, 17, initially agreed to the school minister’s proposal for fear of going public, she quickly came to regret her decision as she realized this would involve weekly visits from her alleged abuser. “I was reminded once a week that he assaulted me” she told the Globe and “felt so ashamed of it,” explaining the meetings made her lose sleep and suffer panic attacks.
The allegations come as Exeter officials are already embroiled in other sexual misconduct scandals, including failure to punish a beloved history teacher, Rick Schubart, for having had sex with at least two female students over his 40 year long career. Schubart was eventually let go. Two weeks after the news broke, Exeter fired another teacher who had also confessed to sexual encounters with a student years before.
As talk of sexual misconduct spread like fire on campus, alumna Zoha Qamar penned a scathing column in the feminist blog Jezebel criticizing school officials for turning a blind eye to sexual assault. Rape culture, she wrote, is just as prevalent in high schools as it is on college campuses, noting that more than a quarter of Exeter students report feeling pressured to participate in “hook up” culture.
Michealla made a report to the school accusing Chudi — whom she was initially friend with — of slipping his hands under her clothes and trying to grope her in the church basement, even after she rebuffed his advances multiple times. Chudi admitted to both.
But school officials downplayed what the police would eventually determine was sexual assault as mere harassment, as per the school’s policy. During a meeting with both students in December, one of the deans even went so far as telling her that “the good news” was she needn’t report the incident to the police since there was “no penetration,” according to the newspaper.
As for the diplomatic arrangement orchestrated by Reverend Thompson, it eventually fell through as Chudi, resentful, stopped making the bread deliveries. Meanwhile, he went about his life as a popular student and senior class leader.
After month of emotional distress, during which she was asked to stop spreading the word about her “unconfirmed” abuse, Michaella finally decided go to the police. Chudi is now facing arraignment in August on a misdemeanor charge of sexual assault.
Police are now probing the school itself for its handling of Michaella’s case and other instances of administrators having failed to report past misdeeds to parents and faculty.
