SPS Today: Notes on a Silencing: A Candid Conversation

Author and Sexual Assault Survivor Lacy Crawford ’92 and Rector Kathy Giles Connect

Jana F. Brown

Notes on a Silencing, writes New York Times book reviewer Jessica Knoll in a July 7, 2020, appraisal, “is a purposefully named, brutal, and brilliant retort to the asinine question of ‘Why now?’” The memoir, written by Lacy Crawford ’92, comes nearly 30 years after the author and survivor was sexually assaulted on the campus of St. Paul’s School by two Sixth Form boys. For years after she initially reported the attack – and was subsequently threatened with expulsion should she testify, Crawford remained silent about what happened to her. But she told Concord Monitor reporter Alyssa Dandrea that the 2017 inquiry into a history of abuse at St. Paul’s School propelled her to come forward with her story.

“I would never have written this memoir had I not joined the state investigation into St. Paul’s in 2017,” Crawford said. Crawford’s comments came during a July 21 conversation between her and Rector Kathy Giles that was moderated by Dandrea through Concord’s Gibson’s Bookstore. The virtual event, to which Crawford extended an invitation for Giles to join her, gave the women an opportunity to engage in a real-time dialogue. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selection, Notes on a Silencing was published in July by Little, Brown and Company. In the nearly hour-long conversation with Giles about the experiences detailed in the book, Crawford spoke candidly of the assault and the impact it has had on her life.

“It has changed everything about who I am,” said Crawford. She noted that she did not approach the Gibson’s event from a place of confrontation, but was instead “interested in conversation and revelation and transparency, even when it’s messy.” Crawford also credited Giles for approaching her and “recognizing that what I have to offer is useful and can provide a roadmap for how we can move forward. Kathy did apologize to me on behalf of the School, which I appreciate. I say that because a lot of people have asked me, ‘Has anyone apologized to you?’ Yes, Kathy has. But Kathy didn’t hurt me. I haven’t had a formal apology from any of the people who did.” Giles, who became the Fourteenth Rector of St. Paul’s School in July 2019, spoke of the School’s efforts over the last several years to listen to and understand the stories of the past. Dandrea then asked Giles about the greatest hurdles St. Paul’s faces in re-making its culture.

“St. Paul’s needs to hear the voices and understand the stories and unpack the past and, as Lacy says, that’s messy work,” said Giles. “There has to be listening and not just a rush to a fix. These are deep, systemic, challenging issues that have resulted in injuries that people will carry with them for the rest of their lives. We need to understand them. In terms of a…sincere apology, it requires a promise to do better and it requires some substance. We are working in that direction.” In her review for the New York Times, Knoll not only acknowledged Crawford for her resilience and bravery in coming forward, but also for her talent as a writer. Notes on a Silencing is Crawford’s second published book. Her first, a novel called Early Decision, was released in 2013.

“Crawford’s writing is astonishing,” writes Knoll. “The story is crafted with the precision of a thriller, with revelations that sent me reeling.” Since the publication of her memoir, Crawford said she has heard from more than 100 SPS graduates, more than 40 percent of whom shared unsolicited stories of their own physical assaults.

“The puzzle for St. Paul’s,” Crawford said, “is how do we understand what story we are telling and how do we tell it in a way that allows it to matter?” While Crawford spoke to Giles and Dandrea about the “culture of exceptionalism” at SPS, she described Giles as “the last hope, if there is such a thing,” in initiating change. “We need to listen, learn, and act from a place of admiration, respect, and honor,” said Giles. “I stand with you, but I’m not going to stand in front of you. This is your voice. People need to hear it. We need to hear these voices to understand where we’ve been and every last piece of where we need to go.”

Crawford said she wrote her memoir as a way to begin the repair process at St. Paul’s and campuses elsewhere, and to help prevent what happened to her from happening to other young people in the future. When Dandrea asked her what she wished she could have known as a 15-year-old girl, Crawford said, “I wish I had known that the School had a legal obligation to report that to the police. I wish I had known that a lot of the girls around me, even and especially the ones who to me were just unspeakably confident and charismatic and successful in everything they tried, that they were suffering too in such similar ways. Maybe I could have been friends with them and maybe not; we didn’t have words for these things. “…Do I go back and tell that girl to knock on the door and tell someone?” Crawford continued. “Hell, no. I can’t change the world I was in. The School in those years did not have the resources . . . to handle what had just happened to me.”

When the School does make change, Crawford added, it will not mean pretending all is perfect and that nobody will ever be harmed again. “But,” she said, “we will be able to support each other and hold each other through the things that happen and we don’t exile the ones who challenge our notion of who’s good and who’s bad.”

Nearly 30 years after she was assaulted as a 15-year-old student at St. Paul’s, Lacy Crawford ’92 received an apology from the Board of Trustees on behalf of the School.

On August 20, Lacy Crawford ’92, whose memoir, Notes on a Silencing, details her survival of a 1990 sexual assault on the campus of St. Paul’s School, shared on her Twitter feed (@lacy_crawford) that she has received a formal apology from St. Paul’s School.

“The apology is brilliant. (Yes, color me shocked.) Institutions can learn from it,” Crawford shared in a thread of messages. Crawford posted excerpts from the letter, which was signed by Archibald Cox, Jr. ’58, president of the SPS Board of Trustees. The dispatch, she wrote, “acknowledges the harm done to me without minimizing it and accepts responsibility without defensiveness, deflection, excuses, or explanations.” Cox expressed sorrow that the School failed to protect Crawford. “We cannot change what happened,” the letter stated, “but we own it and must never let it happen again.” He praised Crawford for her courage in sharing her experience; expressed gratefulness to her on behalf of St. Paul’s; and made a commitment to accountability and change at SPS.

“This letter makes me feel that my experience was allowed to matter,” Crawford Tweeted. “The other survivors I talk to share this desire – not for some impossible remedy or justice (ha) but to know that our experiences, and their telling, matter.”