Man trouble

National Review, August 31, 1992

A SEX SCANDAL has erupted at one of the nation's top prep schools, Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where Larry Lane Bateman, chairman of the drama department, is alleged to have been seducing boys and making pornographic videos of them. A former student says Mr. Bateman coaxed him into an affair after videotaping him in the nude; but he says he ended the affair when he became convinced that Mr. Bateman was using boys as young as six years old. Mr. Bateman denies the charges.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Mr. Bateman gave plenty of notice of his leanings. His PhD dissertation in 1975 included two plays he had written about male teachers who seduced students into homosexual acts. One of them won an award in the American College Theater Festival Competition. Mr. Bateman apparently admitted that it was based on an incident in his own college teaching career.

Nevertheless, Exeter hired him, in keeping with its "progressive" stance. It allows homosexual teachers to live in dormitories as faculty residents, and the New York Times notes that "it has many programs for making students aware of homosexual issues.'' Its principal, Kendra Stearns O'Donnell, says Exeter tries "to free students of the disabling prejudices that later in life will compromise their ability to make a difference," listing "homophobia" among such prejudices.

Few people, so far, openly endorse pedophilia. But Mr. Bateman's career suggests that plenty of progressive-minded people have been winking at it, or at least have refrained from suspecting it lest they be accused of "homophobia." He took advantage of their lax attitude at every step. The case highlights a neglected angle of the new morality: its callousness toward children and adolescents. Even if Mr. Bateman is exonerated of the current charges, Exeter deserves to pay heavily for its indulgent attitudes-an indulgence all the more odious because accompanied by moral self-congratulation.