Elite Prep School Secretly Fired Longtime Teacher For Sex Abuse Claims, Now Faces More Allegations
Police say they are currently investigating “multiple allegations of misconduct and abuse” at the Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the most prestigious private high schools in the country, where administrators last week divulged that a longtime teacher admitted to at least two cases of sexual misconduct.
In February, school principal Lisa MacFarlane sent out an email to alumni acknowledging “news reports” about students from other elite high schools coming forward with sex abuse allegations. In it, she urged Exeter alumni to come forward with any information of their own and touted the school’s internal policies for handling such claims.
As I begin my tenure at Exeter, I want to be sure to convey to you, as Principal Hassan did, how seriously we continue take any instances of abuse or harassment. Please know that our top priority at Phillips Exeter Academy is ensuring the physical and emotional safety and security of our students — past and present. We report criminal acts to the police; child abuse to child protective services; and we require employees to report suspected violations of our code of conduct immediately. If you have experienced or are aware of such violations, I urge you to notify Assistant Principal Ron Kim or Dean of Students Melissa Mischke so that we can initiate a thorough investigation immediately.
Last week the reason for that email became clear: The school has a sex abuse scandal of its own. In a joint email sent March 30, McFarlane and trustee president Eunice “Nicie” Johnson Panetta admitted a former teacher had confessed to sexual misconduct in two discrete cases.
“We want you to be aware of two cases of sexual misconduct involving students that took place in the 1970s and 1980s by former faculty member Rick Schubart. We learned of these in 2011 and 2015,” the email reads. “In both cases we immediately reported the allegations to the appropriate authorities and investigated those claims. In both cases Mr. Schubart admitted that sexual misconduct occurred.”
The school says it forced Schubart to retire and move off-campus after learning of the first allegation and “stripped of his emeritus status and permanently barred from campus and all Exeter events” after learning of the second.
The principal at the time, Tom Hassan, stepped down last year sometime after the 2015 allegation against Schubart was made. He apologized this week for not making the allegations public at the time, explaining in a statement that he had been “attempting to balance the privacy and wishes of the victim with the utmost need to ensure the safety of members of the community.”
“It’s clear in retrospect that we didn’t get that balance right,” he said.
Hassan’s wife, New Hampshire governor Maggie Hassan, is currently running for Senate, and she once counted Schubart as a donor and member of her 2012 steering committee. She told reporters her husband didn’t tell her what happened.
She told reporters that “I sensed something was wrong” when Schubart abruptly retired in 2011 and that “I didn’t have the kind of information that would have indicated that removal was appropriate and my husband was protecting the confidentiality of the victim.”
There’s likely to be more: According to the Boston Globe, police are currently investigating new allegations and confirmed that they “involve former faculty but not Schubart.”