It doesn’t take long, in reading the latest sexual- abuse lawsuit against Kamehameha Schools, to be revulsed by the alleged assaults perpetuated by the schools’ one-time consultant, Dr. Robert Browne.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in Circuit Court by eight male former Kamehameha students who claim they were repeatedly and systematically sexually abused between 1972 and 1981, from as young as age 13, by Browne, the schools’ longtime psychiatric consultant. No one at the schools helped them, they claim, despite repeated pleas for help to teachers, dorm advisers and administrators, including an intermediate school principal.
Browne saw hundreds of Kamehameha students from 1958 to 1985; he killed himself in 1991 after a former student threatened to expose his abuse. His monstrous acts already are known to have scarred at least 32 former Kamehameha students, whose earlier lawsuit against the schools was settled two years ago for $80 million.
The current suit was filed under a now-expired law that allowed victims of long-ago events to sue for sex assault. That law was crucial in affording victims the needed time to confront their painful pasts, and to take the brave steps to pursue redress.
Sent to Browne for treatment, the students were assaulted instead, the lawsuit claims, and when they tried seeking help, were threatened with expulsion. That sense of helplessness is intensely documented, with plaintiffs alleging Browne’s sexual assaults were reported to teachers, counselors and administrators, all of whom ignored the claims.
Disturbing also are charges that Browne was not the only sexual predator in the students’ midst — but that some assaults by him were done in “the presence of other unnamed adult male observers.” And one plaintiff claims that after reporting Browne to his speech teacher, that teacher also sexually assaulted him.
It now falls to current Kamehameha leadership to address any past wrongs. “We are very sorry for past abuses suffered by Dr. Browne’s patients … ” the schools said in part, in a statement. “We have been working, and will continue to work, on resolving these cases.”
As part of the earlier $80 million deal, Kamehameha enacted a host of improvements, including a hotline for students to report potential abuse and protocols to investigate claims.
Overall, these cases must prompt all schools — and all institutions, especially ones that work with children — to shore up their own policies for reporting and dealing with abuse allegations. It takes a village to raise a child — but conversely, it takes only the silence of villagers to enable heinous acts to continue.
