DEERFIELD (MA)
The Republican - MassLive [Springfield MA]
October 18, 2023
By Luis Fieldman
Deerfield Academy recently reached a six-figure settlement with a former student who brought claims of sexual abuse by a math teacher during the late 1980s — the latest in over a dozen similar claims settled by the prestigious New England boarding school.
The former male student claimed that Peter Hindle, a Deerfield faculty member from 1956 to 2000 and now deceased, sexually abused him at least 20 times by repeatedly climbing through his dorm room’s window when he was about 16 years old, according to the former student’s lawyer Mitchell Garabedian on Wednesday.
The former student was not identified, but Garabedian said that the abuse happened between 1989 and 1990 and that the prep school did not take action after the former student told his counselor of the abuse. The settlement was described as being in the “low six figures.”
Deerfield Academy in a statement said that the school’s trustees and the survivor’s attorney reached the settlement “regarding events that occurred more than 30 years ago.”
The statement said that the academy “goes to great lengths” to build a safe environment for the youth in their care.
“For more than a decade, we have proactively implemented numerous and overlapping safeguards to protect students, including protocols for reporting boundary violations and the careful, judicious investigation of allegations of sexual misconduct,” the statement reads.
Garabedian, a Boston attorney known for representing sexual abuse survivors, made the announcement during a press conference held at Deerfield Academy on Wednesday. He appeared virtually on Zoom as Robert Hoatson, an advocate for abuse survivors and founder of Road to Recovery, held a sign that read “Stop neglecting victims.”
The boarding school has settled six past sexual abuse claims made against Hindle and the school has settled at least 15 similar claims made in the past 10 years, according to Garabedian.
“We can be pretty certain that Deerfield Academy was not treating their students with respect and safety,” Hoatson said. “If a teacher is crawling into a dormitory in the middle of the night, and then the student reports it to a counselor and nothing is done, well how can you say you’re sure that the children on this campus are safe?”
Garabedian said he knows of “dozens upon dozens” of abuse survivors who have not come forward to report their sexual abuse because of the “unjustified shame attached to having been sexually abused as a child.”
“Deerfield Academy was for all intents and purposes the parents of the children,” Garabedian said. “The children lived here. So they were in the hands of Deerfield Academy.”
Hoatson and Garabedian pleaded for lawmakers to amend the statute of limitations for sexual abuse claims so that all claims can be brought forward.
Under Massachusetts law, survivors of sexual abuse must file against a perpetrator before the age of 53 and they have seven years from when they realized the conduct caused them harm, according to Garabedian.
In the case recently settled, the former student’s claim was outside the statute of limitations.
“But it was incumbent upon Deerfield Academy to do the right thing,” Garabedian noted.
Deerfield Academy, founded in 1797, is among the oldest secondary schools in the country. It has a rural, 330-acre campus with a student enrollment of 654 as of 2023, according to state data.
In 2013, the academy disclosed to students, parents and alumni the allegations of sexual misconduct by faculty and launched an internal investigation. It later unveiled the results of that investigation that acknowledged some incidents of faculty engaged in improper sexual activity with students and that the school could have done more to prevent it from happening.
The report named both Hindle and another teacher, Bryce Lambert (who died in 1997 without ever facing charges), and disclosed the college confirmed instances where each had sexual activity with students. In Hindle’s case, he admitted to having sex with one student, and there was strong evidence to suggest involvement with at least one other student, MassLive previously reported.
Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan in 2013 launched an investigation into Hindle’s actions but concluded it was simply too late to pursue charges against him.
Sullivan issued a statement that year that said he was unable to prosecute allegations of wrongdoing from 25 years ago because the statute of limitations had expired.
“We must have no statute of limitations,” Garabedian urged on Wednesday. “Anytime a victim comes forward to report that he or she has been sexually abused, he or she should be able to take his or her perpetrator to court. We want accountability.”