Concord
The lawsuit, submitted by a former student using a pseudonym who enrolled at the Concord prep school in 2012, claims top officials knew of sexual conquest games, including the now-infamous “Senior Salute,” yet turned a blind eye to reports made by students who were targeted. The girl, who was recruited by St. Paul’s and began her schooling there at just age 13, said she was repeatedly sexually harassed and groped. She also says she was raped multiple times by a male student with whom she began a romantic relationship during her first year.
School administrators knew the girl had been raped, but failed to provide her with support services and educational accommodations, the lawsuit alleges; instead, she was quickly labeled as a thief when bags, gym shirts and other items were reported missing by fellow students.
St. Paul’s Rector Michael Hirschfeld and Assistant Dean of Students Chad Green ultimately forced the girl, known in the lawsuit as Jane Doe, to withdraw from the school or otherwise be expelled, the complaint states.
“Due to the severity of her emotional distress stemming from her encounters of sexual assault at SPS, the sexually hostile environment at SPS, and the treatment she received from administrators at SPS, J.D. was forced to undergo extensive psychiatric treatment,” the lawsuit said.
In a statement late Friday night, Board of Trustees President Archibald Cox Jr. said school leaders had just learned of the new lawsuit against St. Paul’s.
“The Board takes these allegations very seriously,” Cox said. “Subject to the approval of, and in cooperation with, the Concord police and New Hampshire attorney general, the Board intends to retain outside counsel to investigate these allegations and take all appropriate actions.”
The 31-page lawsuit, submitted late Friday in U.S. District Court in Concord, demands a trial on several grounds including negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and breach of fiduciary duty. It says damages exceed $75,000.
The document follows a lawsuit filed last week by two alumni who say they were sexually assaulted by faculty and staff in the late 1960s and early 1970s at St. Paul’s.
Additionally, Jane Doe is suing under Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program receiving federal assistance.
St. Paul’s was receiving federal education funding in 2012-13 and yet the school failed to have a Title IX coordinator and did not have policies to offer accommodations to victims of sexual assault or for investigating sexual harassment and abuse, according to the lawsuit.
“Despite being on notice of the assaults on and harassment of Ms. Doe, the school failed to take meaningful action to investigate the assault and/or to protect Ms. Doe from retaliation on the part of faculty, staff, and fellow students regarding Ms. Doe’s attempts to seek out a safe educational environment,” her attorneys wrote.
The latest lawsuit was filed by Concord attorney Charles Douglas and Steven Kelly of the Maryland-based law firm Sandford Heisler Sharp, LLC, both of whom represented sexual assault survivor Chessy Prout and her parents in a 2016 suit against the school. That case was settled this past January through a confidential agreement.
The claims in Jane Doe’s suit mirror many of those brought by parents Alex and Susan Prout on behalf of their daughter after Owen Labrie’s conviction on statutory rape and other charges. The Prouts argued that St. Paul’s had failed to “meet its most basic obligations to protect the children entrusted to its care,” and that administrators knew about the “salute,” in which upperclassmen solicit intimate encounters from younger pupils, and did nothing to curtail it.
“Owen Labrie was far from a lone bad apple who failed to accustom himself to SPS culture and abide by school norms,” their lawsuit said. “Rather, Labrie embodied the warped culture of sexual misconduct and deviant moral norms at SPS.”
Labrie was convicted of statutory rape, endangering the welfare of a child and using a computer to solicit sex. The computer charge is a felony that requires Labrie to register as a sex offender for life. Labrie is out of jail on bail conditions pending the resolution of his two appeals, which are currently before the New Hampshire Supreme Court.