For $64,700-a-year, parents can send their children to one of the most elite boarding schools in the country – The Thacher School – located in nearby Ojai, California. The student to teacher ratio at the private boarding school is reportedly 6:1, and the acceptance rate is around 12%. The Thacher School is often considered the most prestigious in the nation, and in 2016, Business Insider ranked the institution as the most selective boarding school in America.
But in a revealing Special Committee Report published yesterday by Thacher School officials, the school acknowledged decades of allegations over “student sexual misconduct, harassment, and ‘boundary crossing’ by faculty members.” The report clarifies that the term ‘sexual misconduct‘ is meant to encompass “a range of acts” including rape, sexual assault, and any form of unwanted touching and sexual harassment. In the report, attorneys hired by Thacher described instances of alleged rape, groping, unwanted touching, and inappropriate comments dating back as far as 40 years. The 90-page document was a shocking revelation for the elite private boarding school.
Six alleged perpetrators were identified by name in the committee report, with lengthy descriptions recounting the specific details of numerous allegations. The report also alleged concerted efforts by former Thacher administrators to cover up complaints and actually place blame on the teenage victims.
In one graphic recounting of a sexual assault incident, the report describes a 16-year-old female student who was repeatedly raped by her English teacher, identified as Tim Regan. The report indicated that Thacher did not contact the police, but rather a male assistant headmaster was dispatched to handle the matter. Per the report, the headmaster asked the survivor if she “enjoyed” the sex. After the incident, a counselor is said to have included a line noting the survivor’s “unfortunate involvement with a faculty member” in a recommendation letter written for the student’s college admission applications.
That 16-year-old student, described only as Student A in the official Thacher report, experienced physical and emotional distress. She was sexually abused multiple times per week, and the Thacher report indicated the English teacher repeatedly raped her throughout her sophomore year and into her junior year.
An unsent letter from Student A was included as evidence in the Thacher committee report. Student A described the repeated sexual abuse at the hands of the English teacher:
“When I tried to get away from him or showed any interest in a boy my age he would either tell me horrible lies about the person or he would try to publicly humiliate me in front of other students to remind me who was in charge. During Junior year he also became much more violent, often hitting me, once throwing me across a room so hard that I ended up on the other side of the bed unconscious. He also pulled my girlfriends into his circle of ‘people’ so that even if I did not want to go to his house all my friends did and I was left with nowhere to go or friends to be with unless I spent time with him. He introduced us all to drugs as a way of having control over us because ‘if anyone found out’ we, not he, would be in big trouble. It was a horrible, scary, hopeless time. I destroyed my dorm room on multiple occasions but never had even the slightest reprimand. No sign that I was in trouble ever was addressed by the School. For me, there was no escape,” Student A wrote.
Student A further described Regan coaching her and trying to convince her that they had a “love” relationship that was special. The English teacher also coached Student A to lie about the repeated sexual abuse, claiming that if she ever revealed it to Thacher authorities, “bad things” would happen.
Through discussions with investigators, Student A recounted that only one faculty member ever asked her directly about the interactions with teacher Tim Regan. But Student A denied anything inappropriate was taking place out of fear that Regan would retaliate.
Student A eloquently described how the systematic sexual atrocities that took place for decades at Thacher were allowed to continue as a result of such rare and indifferent inquiries by the faculty.
“I was the victim in the situation and he was the perpetrator,” Student A said to investigators, noting that a dedicated faculty suspecting misconduct would have taken further action.
“Adults need to recognize that because of the differences in power and role between adults and students, any type of sexual behavior toward young people creates in them tremendous conflict, embarrassment, and often silence,” Student A added.
After turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse and other incidents at Thacher for 40 years, the school finally conducted an investigation (which led to the report). Throughout the investigative process, over 120 former students, parents, and current and former faculty and staff from Thacher were interviewed.
To date, no one accused in the report – including Tim Regan, the English teacher accused of repeatedly raping Student A – has been charged with a crime. The Los Angeles Times reported that officials from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office are “in the process of reviewing the incident.”
“We are going to look into them on a case-by-case basis,” Sergeant Hector Macias told the Los Angeles Times regarding the allegations. “We are going to continue to work with the school and their law office in order to vet some of this out and see if the victims are willing to cooperate.”
Given that the majority of the students at Thacher were likely minors, California’s AB 218 – the law allowing any survivor of childhood sexual abuse the opportunity to file a civil lawsuit – may apply for future suits.
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