Graydon Carter (editor) - Vanity Fairs Schools for Scandal

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2017 by Cond Nast

All works in this collection were previously published in Vanity Fair or on vanityfair.com. Vanity Fair is a registered trademark of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. Used under license.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition August 2017

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or .

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Interior design by Ruth Lee-Mui

Jacket Design by Hilary Fitzgibbons And Jamie Kennan

Jacket Image by Bill Oxford/Getty Images

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-5011-7374-5

ISBN 978-1-5011-7375-2 (ebook)

By Cullen Murphy

G eorge Bernard Shaw once said that the only time his education had been interrupted was when he was in school. Mark Twain was made of nimbler stuff, maintaining that hed actually never let schooling get in the way of his education. Schools have always been good for an easy contrarian laugh.

And yet we cant take our eyes away. Theres a reason why schools drive the plots or provide the setting for novels and movies known to everyonefrom The Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace to Infinite Jest and Prep ; from Goodbye , Mr. Chips and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie to Rushmore, Animal House, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High . Its not only the magical elements that make Harry Potter so compelling. Its also, even mostly, whats familiarthe familiar environment of a school.

The investigations collected in Vanity Fairs Schools for Scandal were published in the magazine over a period of 25 years. Each of them focuses on events at a particular institution. All of them, taken together, reveal why schools of one sort or anotherpublic or private, secondary or post-secondary, old or new, rich or poor, nonprofit or for-profitmake for natural targets of journalistic opportunity.

First, schools are closed systemsnot entirely, but significantly. As subjects, they have boundaries to them; the boundaries may even come in the form of actual walls, with Gothic crenellations and wrought-iron gates. Every school is a compact world unto itselfwith its own history and traditions, its psychology and myths, its ancien regime , its Young Turks, its successes, its failures, its ambitions. Every school has its own rules, written and unwritten. Every school also occupies a particular place in the worldsometimes a shifting placeand every school nurtures (or clings to, if only by the fingernails) a sense of identity and status. Every school, finally, has its secrets: either known to all but never spoken of, or known to just a few until a moment of searing revelation. To a writer, for all these reasons, a school offers a form of locked-room mystery.

So thats one characteristic that schools have to offer. Then theres the flip side. Yes, schools may constitute their own little worldsbut theyre also a point of intersection for just about every social phenomenon on the planet. School is an institution that everyone attendsno other institution can say that. Every day the outside world ventures into classrooms and onto campus in the form of flesh-and-blood human beings from every part of society. The questions central to educationwhat do students need to know? how should they be taught? who should do the teaching?are difficult enough, and elicit no sustained agreement. But schools of every kind, at every level, also have to contend with the state of the economy; with wealth and poverty; attitudes toward sex; attitudes toward gender; attitudes toward disability; the prominence of athletics; changing family structures; race and ethnicity; counseling and medication; addiction to drugs and alcohol; the legal system; crime and punishment; state and federal mandates; standardized testing; changing technology; changing modes of transportation; legal and illegal immigration; politics and political correctness; and much else. Add to this the fact that many of the people involved are at different stages of emotional and intellectual development; are changing rapidly on both the inside and outside; and, no matter how exemplary, are several increments shy of maturity. And thats just the students.

Think of it as a recipe. In a small pressure cooker combine every known ingredient. Tighten the lid. Bring to a boil.

T he 18 articles collected here cover a wide range of subject matterfrom the secretive management of multibillion-dollar endowments (as in the case of Harvard) to the secretive management of private clubs (as in the case of St. Anthonys Hall, at Columbia); from events on campus that have brought criminal charges for defensible reasons (as in the case of St. Pauls School) to events that have led to charges for indefensible ones (as in the case of the Duke University lacrosse players); from episodes that have made headlines across the nation (as in the case of the rape allegations at the University of Virginia) to activities that by design are almost never exposed to public view (as in the case of the infamous Yale secret society, Skull and Bones). Now and then the articles venture into obscure nooks and cranniesthe art thefts at Transylvania University; the lethal, envelope-pushing endeavors by an Oxford sporting clubbut they also describe the complicated public collisions of truth and ideology, law and press, passion and process.

Context is essential. Bring any one issue to the foreground, and many other issues are sure to emerge from the shadows. Sarah Ellisons 2015 account of the annus horribilis at the University of Virginia, Shadows on the Lawn, provides a classic case in point. The precipitating event was the publication of an article in Rolling Stone magazine (A Rape on Campus, by Sabrina Rubin Erdely) in which an anonymous student, referred to only as Jackie, recounted firsthand a horrific episodeher gang rape by members of a campus fraternity. The article appeared at a moment when campuses nationwide were grappling with documented episodes of sexual misconductnot a problem confined to colleges and universities, by the wayand gamely attempting to deal with the problem through on-campus judicial proceedings (mandated by federal law) and broad efforts at education and awareness.