Sick legacy of ‘70s ‘free love’ attitudes

In 1974, Headmaster Tony Zane wrote Rev. Howard H. White Jr. a letter telling him he "should not be in a boarding school" and "should seek psychiatric help." White was let go from St. George's, a ritzy prep school in Middletown, RI, after admitting to sexual misconduct with a male student.

What's remarkable, in retrospect, was that White was fired at all. According to recent reports, more than 40 different students (men and women) reported being molested there by at least six different staff members during the same time period. Most of those complaints were simply ignored, according to victims, and staff members were kept on for decades. Law enforcement was never informed.

The story of St. George's, like that of Horace Mann's — where at least 22 different teachers and staff were accused of sexual misconduct — are a reminder that the days of "free love" weren't hippie and carefree. Whatever nostalgia baby boomers still possess for that era should be tempered by the deep harm it caused our children.

St. George's School, a private, co-ed boarding school in Middletown, R.I.Photo: AP

Blogging about her experience at St. George's in the early '80s, at the end of Zane's career, Margot Magowan describes "Casino Night" when "all the female 'newbies,' mostly freshman and sophomores, dressed as bunnies [a la Playboy], complete with ears and tails" and served candy to upper-classmen who were gambling. She attaches pictures of the scene from her yearbook, along with another in which she and her best friend, also a freshman, are referred to as "Todd's Toys." Todd was a senior prefect at the school. And finally she circles something Todd "bequeaths" in the yearbook — a "twenty-year sentence." Magowan writes, "That's a rape joke."

Life outside St. George's was not much different. Pop culture sexualized underage girls, Hollywood actors and rock stars took advantage of them. David Bowie took Lori Maddox's virginity when she was 15; soon afterward she was bedded by Jimmy Page. Responding to an article about Bowie's dalliances with adolescent girls in the '70s, Harper's contributing editor Rebecca Solnit wrote online about her own experience as a teenager at the time:

They called it 'love,' but it was neglect. And everybody had a good time. Their parents didn't have to parent. Their teachers didn't have to teach, all in the name of love and justice.

"The dregs of the sexual revolution were what remained, and it was really sort of a counterrevolution (guys arguing that since sex was beautiful and everyone should have lots everything goes and they could go at anyone; young women and girls with no way to say no and no one to help them stay out of harmful dudes' way). The culture was sort of snickeringly approving of the pursuit of underage girls.

"It was completely normalized. Like child marriage in some times and places. Which doesn't make it OK, but means that, unlike a man engaged in the pursuit of a minor today, there was virtually no discourse about why this might be wrong."

These were and are some of the oldest and most expensive schools in the country. St. George's was founded in 1896. The $56,000-a-year Episcopal institution counts Ogden Nash among its graduates and its endowment tops $140 million. Presumably most of these mothers and fathers of its students cared about their children even if they didn't helicopter. How were they unaware of what was going on at these schools? Did they assume that everything was great because these were buttoned-up prep schools that generations of family members had attended before?

Sadly, no. The sexual atmospheres of these schools were an open secret. Maybe parents didn't expect some of the more gory details — at St. George's one girl reported that a coach raped her repeatedly and passed around a nude photo of her to the boys at the school — but these were the dregs of the sexual revolution. And the assumption was that some "experimentation" was good for teenagers. Indeed, this is what adolescence was supposed to be about.

Midge Decter, whose book "Liberal Parents, Radical Children" was published in 1975, says that "the children of the educated middle class in the '70s were about the most neglected in the history of the world."

"I exaggerate, but not my much," she acknowledges. "They called it 'love,' but it was neglect. And everybody had a good time. Their parents didn't have to parent. Their teachers didn't have to teach, all in the name of love and justice."

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