MIDDLETOWN, R.I. — For more than a century, St. George’s School has been part of the pedigree of some of America’s richest and most influential families. Astors, Vanderbilts and Bushes have attended the exclusive boarding school, where students can go sailing, play on world-class squash courts or simply enjoy a sweeping view of the sea from the hilltop campus.
But since at least the 1970s, leaders at St. George’s kept a secret.
Dozens of former students have come forward to say they were raped or molested by employees and schoolmates over the past four decades. St. George’s acknowledged in a report it issued shortly before Christmas that it repeatedly failed to notify police and child welfare authorities as required by law.
The school’s current leadership has characterized the abuse as a problem of the past and said it discovered the extent of the misconduct only recently. But many accusers have disputed that, and much of their anger has fallen on Eric Peterson, headmaster since 2004.
Peterson was told in 2004, 2006, 2011, 2012 and 2015 about numerous allegations of abuse, according to interviews with alumni and documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Many alumni are calling on Peterson to step down. Some want the entire board swept clean.
“It’s like a charade of arrogant exceptionalism that is endemic in the school, in the leadership of the school,” said Hawk Cramer, an alumnus who says he was molested by the choir director in the 1980s and told Peterson about it in 2004. (more...)
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