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Almost a year after former Thacher School students launched a social media campaign to expose a decades-long history of sexual misconduct against students by faculty members, the boarding school at Ojai, who costs $ 64,700 a year, admitted to committing wrongdoing.
In a 91-page report published on the Ojai High Schools website Wednesday, LA firm attorneys Munger, Tolles & Olson, who were hired by the institute, detailed incidents of alleged rape, trial and error, and inappropriate remarks dating back to the 1980s. The report also describes attempts by former administrators to cover up the incidents and blame the victims, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Six former faculty members are charged with misconduct.
A student who dated Thacher in the 1980s says she was repeatedly raped by her English teacher during her graduate years, starting at the age of 16. In one incident, the teacher allegedly threw her across a room so violently that she passed out.
Rather than calling the police, the administration appointed a deputy director to investigate the allegations. He reportedly asked the victim if she liked sex and the school referred to her unfortunate involvement with a faculty member in a letter of recommendation from the college.
A psychologist who spoke to the girl at the time reported a case of child abuse to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff closed the case, stating that the complainant refused to participate.
In a letter to Thacher’s then chief Willard Wyman, the psychologist said he and some administrators had convinced the victim’s mother that it would be in her daughters’ best interests not to press charges, as this isolate him more from his peers.
Wyman was also investigated by outside attorneys in 1992, who found 17 incidents in a pattern of offensive verbal conduct and inappropriate touching of students and staff. He retired that year, without mentioning the allegations in his resignation letter, and died in 2014.
Another student claims that she and her roommate were assaulted by two male college students who entered their room as a senior in the 1990s.
Michael Mulligan, who had replaced Wyman as head of the school, reportedly told the girls they didn’t have a leg to stand on because they weren’t doing enough to stop the boys.
Mulligan is also accused of hiring a man as Thachers head coach in 1987, although he knew the coach had been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a football player at a New England boarding school. while the men worked on it together. In 1997, three former students reported unwanted touching by the coach to Mulligan.
The report says Mulligan told the women the coach in question had felt lonely and confused.
Mulligan claims he told the coach to quit and that someone at the school, not Mulligan, reported the charges to law enforcement. The report’s authors say they found no evidence to support Mulligan’s claim.
No accused in the report, which includes an apology from Thachers’ chairman of the board and promises to establish a full protocol for allegations of sexual abuse by teachers, have been charged.
We will examine [the allegations] on a case-by-case basis, Sgt. Hector Macias of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office told The Times. We will continue to work with the school and their law firm to verify some of this information and see if the victims are willing to cooperate.
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