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May. 31st, 2005 06:54 amI'm sure you've all been following with interest as intellectual property attorney Lawrence Lessig's life has unravelled along with the reputation of the American Boychoir School. You haven't? *sigh* I have to do all the legwork around here. There's a really nice article on the story, and you should read it. The thing I found most amazing about the story was how much it read like a boarding school fanfic. Seriously. As I was reading the news article, I kept thinking to myself that this would make a fine, fine fic. Trouble is, it's not a fanfic. It's real.
This was a guy's life. It was the life of (apparently) rather a lot of guys who, as children, went to this damn music boarding school where the charismatic and attractive choir director fucked more than a few of his pupils with what appears to be the knowledge and consent of the administration. From the aforementioned article: In 1968, the choir director, Donald Bryant, was fired over “a love affair with a little boy,” one of the school’s former board members later told the New York Times. (A number of such accusations would ultimately be leveled against him.) But Bryant’s departure failed to set things right. Instead, the Boychoir School hired his replacement, along with a new headmaster, on the recommendation of John Shallenberger, the wealthy scion of a Pennsylvania coal-mining family and a patron of boys’ choirs. Shallenberger also happened to be a chronic pedophile: Convicted over four decades on multiple charges related to child molestation, he eventually fled the country to avoid prosecution in his home state. (He died this February, at 87, in Mexico, where he was overseeing an orphanage.)
It goes downhill from there. Go read the article.
This was a guy's life. It was the life of (apparently) rather a lot of guys who, as children, went to this damn music boarding school where the charismatic and attractive choir director fucked more than a few of his pupils with what appears to be the knowledge and consent of the administration. From the aforementioned article: In 1968, the choir director, Donald Bryant, was fired over “a love affair with a little boy,” one of the school’s former board members later told the New York Times. (A number of such accusations would ultimately be leveled against him.) But Bryant’s departure failed to set things right. Instead, the Boychoir School hired his replacement, along with a new headmaster, on the recommendation of John Shallenberger, the wealthy scion of a Pennsylvania coal-mining family and a patron of boys’ choirs. Shallenberger also happened to be a chronic pedophile: Convicted over four decades on multiple charges related to child molestation, he eventually fled the country to avoid prosecution in his home state. (He died this February, at 87, in Mexico, where he was overseeing an orphanage.)
It goes downhill from there. Go read the article.
