Phillips Exeter Academy Forces Female Student To Confront Her Attacker On A Weekly Basis

Story out of Exeter, New Hampshire:

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. 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.

“I worked so hard, harder than I should have in my advisor’s opinion to make sure that this wouldn’t blow up, that the police wouldn’t have to get involved,” read Michaella. “But still. I want to know: why?”

Chudi struggled to answer, but he finally took responsibility for his unwanted advances, Michaella said.

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.”

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.

The allegations came at a critical moment. In late August, Exeter alumnus Zoha Qamar had published a column on the women’s blog Jezebel that criticized Exeter deans for turning a blind eye to sexual assault on the campus. In the wake of that piece and the felony sexual assault conviction of Owen Labrie, a student at St. Paul’s in Concord, Exeter’s new school leader, Lisa MacFarlane, wrote to parents on Sept. 4 that the school is “acutely aware” of the “important and troubling questions” the trial raised for all schools. Exeter, she promised, is committed to addressing issues of consent and sexual assault.

But in the October meeting with the deans, Michaella felt uneasy about whether the school could adequately protect her. Near the end of the conversation, Cosgrove tried to reassure the students: “The good news is you don’t have to report this to the police because there was no penetration,” he said, according to Michaella’s recollection. Cont.

Story from - The Boston Globe
Image from - Transmarinus - Wikimedia Commons