BishopAccountability.org
	Citadel Placed Its Reputation above Stopping Sexual Abuse By Chris Lamb Post and Courier November 17, 2011 http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/nov/17/citadel-placed-its-reputation-above-stopping-sexua/ Citadel President Gen. John Rosa apologized Monday for not reporting that a counselor had engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with a teenage boy at a summer camp that was run by the college. The apology comes late and rings hollow. The counselor, Louis “Skip” ReVille, is accused of sexually abusing several teenage and pre-teenage boys in the Charleston area in the years after he worked at the Citadel camp. In 2007, one former camper told the school that ReVille had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with him when he was 14 years old. The boy said the incident caused his life to spiral into the “dark” side of drug abuse, poor grades, and extensive therapy sessions. “The thing I want most is just to make sure he doesn’t have a chance to do this to anyone else,” the boy told school officials, The Post and Courier reported on Tuesday. The Citadel did not report the incident to police and then tried to prevent it from becoming public. ReVille, a graduate of The Citadel, has admitted to sexually abusing three boys while working as a coach, vice principal and Bible school teacher. Arrested on Oct. 28, he is charged with five cases of sexual abuse and police expect other charges will be filed. The extensive details of ReVille’s crimes would not have come to light if it had not been for The Post and Courier. The Post and Courier assigned several reporters who investigated the many different sides of the story, producing well-researched, well-supported, and well-written stories that remind us of the invaluable role that newspapers play in our lives. The ReVille story reminds us why newspapers are still necessary in a digital world where snake oil is sold as journalism on partisan blogs, talk radio, and cable news programs, and where news reporting has been gutted for higher profits by corporations that run television networks and local television stations. The ReVille story also presents a disturbing parallel to the one involving former Penn State University defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who is accused of sexually molesting eight boys. Football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier were fired because they did not do enough after a witness said he had seen Sandusky having sex with a 10-year-old in a shower at the team’s practice complex. The Post and Courier and police investigations linked ReVille to the Citadel camp in the days after his arrest. When the newspaper tried to question Citadel officials, the school refused to cooperate. The Citadel ignored the newspaper’s Freedom of Information request until it realized that as a state school it had no choice but to comply. The newspaper reported that hundreds of documents revealed that The Citadel purposely decided that it was more important to protect its reputation than it was the welfare of a teenage boy. If The Citadel had reported the incident in 2007, the lawyer of the boy who made the complaint said, “What we’re seeing now as a community may never have happened.” Without The Post and Courier’s reporting, its readers would not have known the details of the sexual predator among us, who was allowed to continue preying on young boys because a college knew about him and did nothing. If you had a chance to stop a child from being molested, you would do so, wouldn’t you? Both The Citadel and Penn State had that chance and did nothing because they didn’t want their respective reputations damaged. Their reputations are now in tatters, and many young boys will suffer the consequences of their recklessness. Chris Lamb teaches journalism at the College of Charleston. His latest book, “The Sound and Fury of Sarah Palin,” will be published next month. He can be reached at lambc@cofc.edu.
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