NEW HAMPSHIRE
Boston Globe
By Jenn Abelson
GLOBE STAFF JULY 13, 2016
Michaella Henry was nervous about returning to the church at Phillips Exeter Academy where she said her classmate, a towering star athlete, had slipped his hands inside her shirt and squeezed her backside as she said “no” over and over again.
For two months last fall, the ugly encounter in the basement of the Phillips Church on the Exeter, N.H., campus had kept the 17-year-old awake at night and triggered sudden panic attacks.
But instead of going to the police with her allegation of sexual assault, Michaella agreed to the school minister’s proposal to meet in the church with the athlete, Chukwudi “Chudi” Ikpeazu, to work out their differences.
Michaella avoided making eye contact with Chudi that December evening as she read a statement she had written on her cellphone. …
At the minister’s urging, the young man also agreed to an “act of penance”: baking bread and delivering it to Michaella for the rest of the year. The Rev. Robert Thompson praised Michaella for accepting the arrangement, later writing, “You did a great service for Chudi, because you gave him an opportunity to express his regret and to take responsibility for what he had done.”
Chudi, through his attorney, declined to comment.
But the bread diplomacy backfired, laying bare a string of choices that made Michaella and her family question the commitment at one of America’s premier private schools to protecting students from abuse.
Instead of improving things, the weekly bread deliveries made Michaella feel increasingly stressed, forcing her to confront her alleged abuser again and again.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.