… is out front on the latest Yeshiva University scandal – a decades-long cover-up of sexual abuse. And the cover-up continues.
[A Yeshiva alumnus] said he was dismayed when [the Yeshiva-appointed investigator] told him that her report might be delivered to the Y.U. board orally rather than in writing. He said he was even more alarmed when [she] said that unlike the [Penn State] Freeh report, which was disseminated publicly the same day it was presented to the board, she “could not say whether… the board would release the report to the public.”
[The alumnus] sent a letter, signed by 18 Y.U. high school alumni [the abuse took place at Yeshiva’s high school], to the chairman of the university’s board on January 3, asking that the investigation follow the blueprint laid out by the Freeh report. By January 8, the chairman, Henry Kressel, a managing director at a private equity firm in Manhattan, had not responded.
When a reporter from the Forward called Kressel on January 7 and identified himself, Kressel cut off the call. Kressel’s assistant later directed the Forward to Y.U.’s press office. (Y.U.’s press office did not respond to several questions, including a request to know who on the board is overseeing the investigation and when the board might decide to make the report public.)
Other high-ranking Y.U. officials declined to speak to the Forward. Reached at his New York home, David S. Gottesman, a billionaire investor and a Y.U. chairman emeritus, said: “I don’t talk to reporters. I never have.” Another chairman emeritus, Ronald P. Stanton, who made his fortune in agrochemicals, said, “I have no comment, sorry.”
… Seymour also declined to respond in regard to whether any member of her investigation team has any past or present ties to Y.U….
Yes, Yeshiva, following its long-established M.O. (denydenydenydenydeny), is covering itself in glory once again.
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Brava to this Yeshiva professor who takes advantage of her tenure (keep this in mind when considering the benefits of tenure) to go after Yeshiva. I’m sure Yeshiva will punish her in other ways; but they can’t fire her.
We now can see that there is a paradigm of institutional cover-up, and have named institutions that stand in that line: the Roman Catholic Church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish organizations, Penn State, Syracuse University, the Citadel, Poly Prep Country Day School, the Horace Mann School, and now my own employer, Yeshiva University, among many others too numerous to name. At the same time, the paradigm is crumbling before our very eyes. No institution can expect to protect its secrets of abuse and assault any longer.
January 11th, 2013 at 1:44AM
Hello Margaret!
That’s the same brave “Forward” that helped our great-grandparents make sense out of America. Glad they’re still around.
I’m sending you a message to your email – please have a look.
Janet
January 23rd, 2013 at 8:43PM
Jewish Law and the Tragedy of Sexual Abuse of Children
– The Dilemma within the Orthodox Jewish Community
Steven H. Resnicoff* suggest everyone read this article RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG
January 30th, 2013 at 6:04AM
I just saw that Rabbi Dr. Rosenberg recommended my article. It can be downloaded for free athttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=625213