Horace Mann Sexual Abuse History Coming Under Alumni, Prosecutor Scrutiny

With a Bronx District Attorney review on the way and alumni stopping donations and creating advocacy websites, we'd say Amos Kamil's New York Times Magazine story on the alleged decades-long history of sex abuse at the Horace Mann prep school has had a big impact.

With a Bronx District Attorney review on the way and alumni stopping donations and creating advocacy websites, we'd say Amos Kamil's New York Times Magazine story on the alleged decades-long history of sex abuse at the Horace Mann prep school has had a big impact. The day after Kamil's long, personal tale of alleged improprieties he and and classmates witnessed at the Bronx private school was posted on The Times' website, the New York Daily News put it on its frontpage. And now, as The Village Voice's Graham Rayman reports, some alumni have stopped giving donations to the school, while others have created Facebook pages, and a Horace Mann Survivor blog. "More than 1,000 people, many of them graduates of the school, have written to the newspaper either recounting their own awful experiences, attacking Kamil's story, denying they saw anything questionable, or expressing support for the victims," writes Rayman, adding "More than 2,000 alums have joined a closed Facebook page to express their views on the scandal."

Beyond readers, the story has prompted Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson to begin a review of the school, reports The Times' Jenny Anderson. At this point, it's unclear what can even be done about the alleged abuses, some of which may go back to 1978, but Anderson writes that Johnson will "reach out to the Horace Mann community and encourage them to report incidents of such behavior, whether they are within or outside of the statute of limitations."