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Elite Manhattan Prep School Brearley Looking Into Old Sex Abuse Allegations
By
David Colon
Published May 13, 2017
Modified May 13, 2017
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By
David Colon
Published May 13, 2017
Modified May 13, 2017
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The Brearley School, an all-girls private school located on the Upper East Side, is investigating old allegations of sexual abuse that may have taken place at the school. Brearley is just the latest in a series of prestigious private schools that have been roiled by sex abuse allegations in the last few years.
According to the Times, school administrators sent an email the staff, former students and the families of current students to let them know that the school has hired a law firm to look into "possible sexual misconduct, not related to current faculty or staff, which occurred in the distant past."
The email also asked for any past students who have knowledge of abuse to share it with investigators. However, the school stressed that no current students have reported any instances of sexual abuse at the moment. Administrators wrote that "regardless of the time that has elapsed, it is our absolute responsibility to care for all of our alumnae," according to NBC4.
Private schools in the tri-state area have been reckoning with sex abuse claims for the past few years. In 2012, a teacher at Bronx private school Horace Mann admitted to having sex with "maybe three, I don't know" students in the 1960s and 1970s when he was a teacher there. In April of this year, a dozen former teachers at Connecticut's Choate boarding school were implicated in a pattern of sexual abuse of students that went on for decades. And in 2015, a teacher at Léman Manhattan Preparatory School was arrested for allegedly having sex with a drunk 16-year-old student in the bathroom of the Lit Lounge on the night of his last day at the school.
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