Great Is the Truth

August 24, 2015
Kamil’s book-length treatment of the sexual abuse scandal at an elite New York City prep school tells the story behind his 2012 New York Times Magazine feature on the topic, and reports on the tumultuous aftermath of the feature’s publication. Following the Sandusky calamity at Penn State University, and long after a close friend and classmate confided in Kamil that he had been raped by one of their revered Horace Mann teachers, Kamil uncovers other stories of similar sexual abuse at the school. The incidents occurred over 30-plus years dating back to 1960s. After the story breaks, more alumni come forward claiming abuse, and the victims band together to demand accountability from the prestigious institution. In all, former students implicate 22 teachers on 63 charges of abuse and claim negligence on the part of multiple administrations. On Facebook and in a support group held in N.Y.C., factions debate what justice should look like and how best to seek it, especially in a state with such a conservative statute of limitations. Finally confronted (in a meeting at the Harvard Club), the school’s board of trustees refuses to submit to a full-scale, independent investigation, and individual parties mediate meager settlements. It’s tedious reading, but the story runs hot for Kamil, who learns firsthand—and seemingly for the first time—that a powerful institution might value its reputation over its ethical obligations. The cast of characters is unwieldy, and pages of Horace Mann reveries, complete with clinking glasses of Scotch, don’t exactly welcome readers to the rarified world of the N.Y.C. prep school and its alumni. Agent: Todd Schuster, Zachary Schuster Harmsworth.

September 1, 2015
An investigative reporter sheds light on a shocking decadeslong sex scandal at a prestigious New York prep school. Kamil was a proud Horace Mann graduate. For him and the friends he made at the school, it was "a unique, life-forging experience...[that] had made [them] who [they] were." But when they reunited a few years after they graduated from college and began comparing notes about their experiences at Horace Mann, an unsettling pattern begin to emerge. Almost everyone in the group had endured some form of sexual harassment and/or abuse, including rape. At the time, no one thought to explore these stories further. But 20 years later, in the shadow of the 2011 Jerry Sandusky Penn State football sex scandal, Kamil realized that justice needed to be done. So he began reaching out to other Horace Mann graduates and eventually published an article called "Prep School Predators" in the New York Times Magazine on June 10, 2012. The piece received more than 1,000 online comments, many of which came from sex abuse survivors. Former students began demanding that Horace Mann take responsibility for the actions of the nearly two-dozen teachers implicated in a scandal that took place over more than 30 years. Despite credible testimonies, media exposure, and eventual legal action, the school, which boasted "some of the world's richest alumni," managed to settle with the plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit against it for "pennies on the dollar." Although two members of the Horace Mann board of directors went on to form a charity to help survivors pay for therapy services, the school itself never fully acknowledged it was at fault and never pursued the independent investigation to bring closure to a painful episode. To Kamil's credit, he never attacks his alma mater for its handling of the sex scandal, but he uses his narrative to bring truth out of darkness and let it prevail, just as it does in the words of Horace Mann's school song. A disturbing but necessary book.

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September 15, 2015

While sex-abuse scandals continue to emerge at elite U.S. private schools, journalists and coauthors Kamil and Elder launch an investigation into one in particular: a scandal at the eminent Horace Mann School. Founded in 1887, Horace Mann has a long tradition of educating the scions of New York City's upper classes. Kamil is an unlikely alum, relating the story of how he went from playing stickball with his friends in the Bronx to attending the school on a baseball scholarship in the early 1980s. Much of the book will be familiar to those who read Kamil's 2012 cover story for the New York Times Magazine. It's all here, except in much richer detail: the chronology of events, the naming of faculty members alleged to have taken advantage of students, and the "wall of silence" that victims or their parents encountered when they tried to hold the school accountable. Villains clearly emerge in the second half of the book, when the image-conscious board of trustees tries to sweep the story under the rug. However, a group of victims organizes and eventually succeeds in forcing the school into mediation. VERDICT Although some readers may quibble with his reliance on anonymous sources, Kamil's deep roots in the Horace Mann community allowed him to draw on numerous interviews with alumni and teachers. Essential for academic and public libraries.--Seth Kershner, Northwestern Connecticut Community Coll. Lib., Winsted

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2015
Like a grenade dropped into a minefield. That was one description of the impact made by Kamil's cover story in the New York Times Magazine on sexual abuse at the Horace Mann School. The abuse, which extended over decades, was alleged against some of the most admired and prominent members of the faculty and administration at the well-regarded private school in the Bronx. After the story ran in June 2012, it ricocheted through the community, with alumni forming networks for support and action, and survivors eventually going through a painful mediation process. Although Kamil, who attended the school himself, shares some of his own recollections of that time, along with the experiences he had covering the story and its aftermath, he generally keeps a journalist's distance, making the rare moments when his emotions come to the fore all the more powerful. Dense with interviews as well as soul-searching reflections on the impact of the scandal and a look at what other institutions in similar situations have done, this is required reading for anyone who has followed the Horace Mann story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)