NEW YORK
Riverdale Press
Posted 4/30/15
The Horace Mann School’s approach to child abuse by its own faculty members has been more like that of a cutthroat Wall Street firm than a caring educational institution.
Many of the dozens of victims who suffered at the hands of educators from the 1960s to the 1990s were too traumatized to inform the administration at the time of the crimes.
Those who did were often strongarmed into staying quiet.
Once a 2012 article in The New York Times showed the shocking extent of the abuse, survivors who came back to their alma mater seeking closure were treated to disdain and paltry offers of compensation.
The state’s draconian statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases has only worsened things for victims at Horace Mann and other schools.
Under the current law, children who suffer sexual abuse have just five years after they turn 18 to sue their tormenters in civil or criminal court. Yet one of the salient features of child sexual abuse is that it can take many years for victims to acknowledge what happened to them.
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