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Great Is the Truth: Secrecy, Scandal, and the Quest for Justice at the Horace Mann School
A shocking exposé of sexual abuse and the struggle for justice at one of America's most prestigious schools
In June 2012, Amos Kamil's New York Times Magazine cover story, "Prep-School Predators," caused a shock wave that is still rippling. In his piece, Kamil detailed a decades-long pattern of sexual abuse at the highly prestigious Horace Mann School in the Bronx. After the article appeared, Kamil closely observed the fallout. While the article revealed the misdeeds of three teachers, this was just the an extraordinary twenty-two former Horace Mann teachers and administrators have since been accused of abuse.
In Great Is the Truth , Kamil and his coauthor, Sean Elder, tell the riveting story of how one of the country's leading schools was beset by scandal. In 1970, Horace Mann hired R. Inslee "Inky" Clark Jr. as its headmaster. As Yale's wunderkind dean of admissions, Clark had helped revolutionize the Ivy League by recruiting a more diverse student body. In the coming years, he would raise Horace Mann to new heights of academic distinction even as serious complaints against beloved teachers were ignored. Kamil and Elder introduce those teachers, among them a popular football coach who had reportedly tried out for the Washington Redskins, a distinguished conductor who took his prize students on foreign trips, an otherworldly English teacher who discussed Eastern philosophy over tea and helped tend the school's gardens, and another English instructor, who told his students that they were mere dust under his foot in comparison to Shakespeare.
In gripping detail, Kamil and Elder relate what happened as survivors of abuse came forward and sought redress. We see the school and its influential backers circle the wagons. We meet Horace Mann alumni who work to change New York State's sexual abuse laws. We follow a celebrity lawyer's contentious efforts to achieve a settlement. And we encounter a former teacher who candidly recalls his inappropriate relationships with students. Kamil and Elder also examine other institutions-from prep schools to the Catholic Church-that have sought to atone for their complicity in abuse and to prevent it from reoccurring.
"Great is the truth and it prevails" may be the motto of Horace Mann, but for many alumni the truth remains all too hard to come by. This book is essential reading for anyone trying to understand how an elite institution can fail those in its charge, and what can be done about it.
In June 2012, Amos Kamil's New York Times Magazine cover story, "Prep-School Predators," caused a shock wave that is still rippling. In his piece, Kamil detailed a decades-long pattern of sexual abuse at the highly prestigious Horace Mann School in the Bronx. After the article appeared, Kamil closely observed the fallout. While the article revealed the misdeeds of three teachers, this was just the an extraordinary twenty-two former Horace Mann teachers and administrators have since been accused of abuse.
In Great Is the Truth , Kamil and his coauthor, Sean Elder, tell the riveting story of how one of the country's leading schools was beset by scandal. In 1970, Horace Mann hired R. Inslee "Inky" Clark Jr. as its headmaster. As Yale's wunderkind dean of admissions, Clark had helped revolutionize the Ivy League by recruiting a more diverse student body. In the coming years, he would raise Horace Mann to new heights of academic distinction even as serious complaints against beloved teachers were ignored. Kamil and Elder introduce those teachers, among them a popular football coach who had reportedly tried out for the Washington Redskins, a distinguished conductor who took his prize students on foreign trips, an otherworldly English teacher who discussed Eastern philosophy over tea and helped tend the school's gardens, and another English instructor, who told his students that they were mere dust under his foot in comparison to Shakespeare.
In gripping detail, Kamil and Elder relate what happened as survivors of abuse came forward and sought redress. We see the school and its influential backers circle the wagons. We meet Horace Mann alumni who work to change New York State's sexual abuse laws. We follow a celebrity lawyer's contentious efforts to achieve a settlement. And we encounter a former teacher who candidly recalls his inappropriate relationships with students. Kamil and Elder also examine other institutions-from prep schools to the Catholic Church-that have sought to atone for their complicity in abuse and to prevent it from reoccurring.
"Great is the truth and it prevails" may be the motto of Horace Mann, but for many alumni the truth remains all too hard to come by. This book is essential reading for anyone trying to understand how an elite institution can fail those in its charge, and what can be done about it.
- GenresNonfictionCrime
253 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 3, 2015
4 people are currently reading
112 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 22, 2022
My measure of a non-fiction book that means something is whether I look into topics it discusses while I'm reading it. The obvious one: does New York State still have one of the most repressive statutes of limitations on the filing of child abuse cases in the country? Thankfully, no. See Google for more.
Great Is the Truth, the title ironically quoting the motto of New York City's Horace Mann school, narrates the School's Board of Trustees' efforts to limit the investigation of the abusive acts of about two dozen of the school's faculty members in the last half of the 20th century. Author, therapist and Horace Mann alum Amos Kamil exposed the shameful exploitation of some of his classmates and fellow students in a 2012 New York Times article and in this 2015 book.
The book offers no context in the form of history of sexual abuse crimes at schools, although it does mention the responsive measures taken contemporaneously by the Potomac School in McLean, Virginia. This was a 3+ star, rounded up, read for me.
Great Is the Truth, the title ironically quoting the motto of New York City's Horace Mann school, narrates the School's Board of Trustees' efforts to limit the investigation of the abusive acts of about two dozen of the school's faculty members in the last half of the 20th century. Author, therapist and Horace Mann alum Amos Kamil exposed the shameful exploitation of some of his classmates and fellow students in a 2012 New York Times article and in this 2015 book.
The book offers no context in the form of history of sexual abuse crimes at schools, although it does mention the responsive measures taken contemporaneously by the Potomac School in McLean, Virginia. This was a 3+ star, rounded up, read for me.
April 9, 2019
One of the most amazing pieces of writing I have ever read. Smart, introspective, generous. Learned so much about group dynamics, litigation, the power of speaking out, and the inadequacy of our responses to survivors.
September 18, 2020
🚫 Mediocre investigative journalism — and when will Sean Elder write a TRUTHFUL long-form account of his own nephew Finnegan Lee Elder’s murdering of a Rome policeman? I am waiting.
👉https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/202...
👉https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/202...
December 13, 2015
I read Kamil's article about sexual abuse at Horace Mann - a fancy NYC private middle and high school - several years ago. I'm not sure why I picked up this book, I thought because I had read the article what's the book going to add. The book adds a ton.
The book describes sexual abuse by a group of eccentric and brilliant teachers, the abuse's life long impact on the abused, institutional deafness and harshness and self-protection in response, and some guidance about alternate, better paths for institutional response. THe book also does a good job of not taking the tone of a plaintiff's legal brief for those who suffered.
This is a compelling story, but the book is bigger than the story it covers. It's about sports leagues, synagogues, schools, boy scouts, any institution who fails its wards.
The book describes sexual abuse by a group of eccentric and brilliant teachers, the abuse's life long impact on the abused, institutional deafness and harshness and self-protection in response, and some guidance about alternate, better paths for institutional response. THe book also does a good job of not taking the tone of a plaintiff's legal brief for those who suffered.
This is a compelling story, but the book is bigger than the story it covers. It's about sports leagues, synagogues, schools, boy scouts, any institution who fails its wards.
July 6, 2016
horrible story well-told. Decades of sexual abuse of minors at author's high school, Horace Mann in New York. Multiple teachers involved, and fairly clear indications that administrators knew what was going on and looked the other way. Occasionally got rid of someone quietly when necessary to keep a lid on it.
good job of describing some of the dynamics [e.g., the preying on kids from troubled families, the shame that interferes with reporting, the grooming of kids by predators......] and letting his old friends and acquaintances tell their stories. At some points a little more process-y than would be ideal -- here's the reaction to my magazine story about it, here's how i tracked down so-and-so, here's my reaction to hearing X about teacher Y whom I'd always trusted.....could have stayed a bit more in the background of the narrative.
good job of describing some of the dynamics [e.g., the preying on kids from troubled families, the shame that interferes with reporting, the grooming of kids by predators......] and letting his old friends and acquaintances tell their stories. At some points a little more process-y than would be ideal -- here's the reaction to my magazine story about it, here's how i tracked down so-and-so, here's my reaction to hearing X about teacher Y whom I'd always trusted.....could have stayed a bit more in the background of the narrative.
March 28, 2016
This was an extraordinary book that was so tough to read.
The unbelievable amount of sexual abuse perpetuated by teachers at Horace Mann is absolutely the most horrific thing I can imagine at a school. Almost equally appalling is how Horace Mann decides to deals with the scandal.
If you work in a school, you really should read this book. If you are easily shocked, this may not be the book for you. But the fact that so many students were abused is one of the grossest chapters of educational history.
The unbelievable amount of sexual abuse perpetuated by teachers at Horace Mann is absolutely the most horrific thing I can imagine at a school. Almost equally appalling is how Horace Mann decides to deals with the scandal.
If you work in a school, you really should read this book. If you are easily shocked, this may not be the book for you. But the fact that so many students were abused is one of the grossest chapters of educational history.
December 30, 2015
Not a book you will rush to read. Often times bogged down by facts of the present when I found myself wanting a more personal touch.
Maybe a tad disappointing due to the fact of how Horace Mann dealt with the aftermath. You wanted the survivors to have some sort of acknowledgment of their pain but none was given. Truly heartbreaking.
Maybe a tad disappointing due to the fact of how Horace Mann dealt with the aftermath. You wanted the survivors to have some sort of acknowledgment of their pain but none was given. Truly heartbreaking.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 25, 2016
The subject matter is riveting and rage-inducing; the book itself, unfortunately, is not. I think it's something about the way the author inserts himself as a narrator -- it 's almost as if there is a layer between me and the story, and I just couldn't get close enough to feel much of anything.
February 2, 2016
Chilling tale of sexual predators at a prestigious prep school
December 5, 2017
A horrible, horrible story to tell. How could most of the students and staff have not seen what was going on around them? I was one of them who was not directly affected by the perpetrators named in the book. Sure, Tek and Kops and Wright were strange but I never imagined that such awfulness was happening right around me.
Amos did an excellent job of bringing the complex story out into the open. Revisiting those years of my life became quite difficult as I worked through the book. And, of course, the current-day HM administration behaved very poorly. No one could blame today's staff for what happened but the institution has a legal and moral obligation to honestly deal with these issues.
Amos did an excellent job of bringing the complex story out into the open. Revisiting those years of my life became quite difficult as I worked through the book. And, of course, the current-day HM administration behaved very poorly. No one could blame today's staff for what happened but the institution has a legal and moral obligation to honestly deal with these issues.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews