NEW HAMPSHIRE
Town and Country
St. Paul’s, the historic New England boarding school, is under fire. Owen Labrie, a recently graduated senior, is on trial in Concord, New Hampshire, where the school is located, for allegedly sexually assaulting a fellow student at the end of the recent school year. Labrie’s lawyer has argued that his client was motivated by the 151-year-old, formerly all-male school’s tradition of predatory sexual behavior, specifically blaming the “senior salute,” a ritual in which older students proposition underclassmen.
As the case gathers attention (local media are reportedly overwhelmed by requests from their national cohorts), graduates of the school, who can be found throughout the highest positions of government, business and the media, are having an intense, behind-the-scenes debate about whether the school’s culture promotes transgression. Here’s what a few of them are saying. No one interviewed below agreed to be identified.
“People in every high school, everywhere, hook-up. It happens. Just because students at St. Paul’s have put a name on senior guys doing it, it’s easier to crucify them for it. Not that it’s right if anyone gets hurt under the guise of it, but no one should take issue with an old tradition that not even everyone does.”
Male, 2004 Graduate
“Everyone knows about senior salutes, but not everyone takes them seriously. It’s not like a mandatory thing at St. Paul’s. There’s no pressure. I feel like they’re [the press; the courts] trying to make it out to be that our school, in this department at least, is so much different than every other boarding school out there. It’s not. We just put a name to these things people talk about and do in their own ways.” Female, 2004 Graduate
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