UNITED STATES
The New York Times
By CLYDE HABERMAN
In the sexual-misconduct nightmare that has forced the city’s school system to wake up to distasteful realities, there are several models to consider. Two that come to mind are “The Children’s Hour” and the Roman Catholic Church in America.
“The Children’s Hour” was a 1934 drama by Lillian Hellman, about two school teachers whose lives are destroyed when a vicious student falsely accuses them of having a lesbian affair. In that era, such a relationship was deemed so abhorrent that The New York Times’s theater critic, the esteemed Brooks Atkinson, could only bring himself to describe the women coyly as being charged with displaying “an unnatural affection for each other.”
The play could easily serve as a reference point for some city teachers who have been accused of indecent behavior in the classroom, and say that they themselves are the true victims.
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