CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - The names of two rectors from a prominent New Hampshire prep school are being removed from several campus building in the wake of sexual abuse claims against scores of faculty members going back decades.
In a weekend letter to the school community, the board president at St. Paul’s School in Concord, Archibald Cox, said the name of William Oates, rector from 1970 to 1982, will be removed from the performing arts building. The name of William Matthews, rector from 2005 to 2011, will be removed from the hockey center. The school is in the process of removing the names from the two buildings Tuesday. It has no plans to remove any other names.
The letter didn’t say what the two men did wrong but the vote by the board comes as the school struggles to address complaints from victims that school leaders in the past ignored complaints and didn’t do enough to support victims.
“This decision, while wrenching for many, aligns with the school’s values and priority placed on honesty, integrity, and student safety and well-being,” Cox wrote in a letter dated Saturday.
The current rector, Kathleen Giles, said Oates’ name was removed over his mishandling of abuse claims during his tenure, including one instance where he told a St. Paul’s alum that he feared an allegation would damage the school’s reputation. Matthew’s name was removed over a case in which he gave a good reference to a teacher, David Pook, who was jailed in 2018 for telling a former student to lie about their relationship to a grand jury investigating sexual misconduct. Pook, of Warner, had taught at St. Paul’s for eight years.
“In our community, there are consequences for dishonesty,” said Giles, who met with students Monday to explain the board’s decision to remove the names. “If you are a student and you lie, you get disciplined … The same thing for the adults in our community.”
Giles acknowledged the school community was divided over abuse issues, noting that portraits of the two men will remain in the dining hall and a scholarship fund established in honor of Matthews will remain in place. Both men were at the school for at least 40 years, with Oates credited with diversifying it and making it coed while Matthews helped it recover from a 2006 flood.
“These men had significant failures of trust, the consequence which was harm to children and potential harm to children,” Giles said. “If the board means what it says about child safety first and honesty is really a school value, then the board really needs to deal with this. Other institutions, other schools, other universities are doing the same kind of hard work.”
Rev. Valerie Minton Webster, an Episcopal priest from Montana who says she was abused as a student at the school in 1976, said there were no winners from removing the names of the rectors. Webster said she felt “incredible sadness” for the other abuse victims as well as the families of Oates and Matthews.
“It’s incredibly painful,” she said. “I’m not happy their names were taken off but I understand their names had to be taken off to demonstrate that the school recognizes that they allowed evil to occur under their watch and didn’t address it as they should.”
In recent years, several reports commissioned by the school found credible evidence of abuse among around 20 faculty members over several decades.
The attorney general’s office in New Hampshire later conducted its own investigation and found evidence of criminal wrongdoing, but an agreement was reached to put the school under government oversight instead of bringing charges.
The attorney general’s investigation was sparked by the allegations involving former faculty and staff, but also by the case of St. Paul’s graduate Owen Labrie, who in 2014 was accused of assaulting a freshman girl as part of a “Senior Salute” competition among upperclassman seeking to have sex with younger students. Labrie was convicted of using a computer to lure an underage student for sex, a felony requiring him to register as a sex offender. He also was convicted of three sexual assault charges and endangering the welfare of a child, all misdemeanors. He was released in June after serving about six months in jail.
Over the last several years, the school has also embarked on a series of reforms aimed at preventing abuse, supporting victims and encouraging the reporting of wrongdoing. As part of that, the school board amended a policy of gift giving earlier this year to create a process to remove honors that led to the name removals. The policy was inspired in part by one at Yale University.
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