Imagine receiving the following letter:
September 8, 1983. Dear Parent: This Department is conducting a criminal investigation involving child molestation (288 P.C.) Ray Buckey, an employee of Virginia McMartin's Pre-School, was arrested September 7, 1983 by this Department. The following procedure is obviously an unpleasant one, but to protect the rights of your children as well as the rights of the accused, this inquiry is necessary for a complete investigation. Records indicate that your child has been or is currently a student at the pre-school. We are asking your assistance in this continuing investigation. Please question your child to see if he or she has been a witness to any crime or if he or she has been a victim. Our investigation indicates that possible criminal acts include: oral sex, fondling of genitals, buttock or chest area, and sodomy, possibly committed under the pretense of "taking the child's temperature." Also photos may have been taken of children without their clothing. Any information from your child regarding having ever observed Ray Buckey to leave a classroom alone with a child during any nap period, or if they have ever observed Ray Buckey tie up a child, is important. Please complete the enclosed information form and return it to this Department in the enclosed stamped return envelope as soon as possible. We will contact you if circumstances dictate same. We ask you to please keep this investigation strictly confidential because of the nature of the charges and the highly emotional effect it could have on our community. Please do not discuss this investigation with anyone outside your immediate family. Do not contact or discuss the investigation with Raymond Buckey, any member of the accused defendant's family, or employees connected with the McMartin Pre-School.
The McMartin Pre-School Scandal of the early 1980s represents a high point of sexual hysteria in America. By 1984, there were hundreds of reported complaints of sex abuse against school employees--and likely there would have been hundreds more if some psychologists hadn't begun to question the highly suggestive interviewing techniques of the group hired by the state of California to investigate the school. Watching the recent Danish film, "The Hunt," about a kindergarten teacher falsely accused of sexual abuse, one must wonder if the wave of such hysteria has yet crested. How could it when fear of proven pedophilia is deservedly rampant? How do we cling to the sacred presumption of innocence for people charged with indecent acts?
I have a close friend who was the victim of such accusations. And like so many others accused of insidious conduct with children, the charges, once made, became both unforgivable and permanent. In this instance, as in many others, there was a strong religious undertow. At the time, my friend and I were members of a Sufi community where puritanical sexuality was the norm. Most marriages I knew were stranded in celibacy as people struggled against what was largely perceived as the congenital affliction of sexual desire. Original Sin in new disguise was warmly welcome in the community. Indeed, this "scrimmage with appetite" was seen as a prerequisite for spiritual progress. The three ills of mankind were listed as "gold, land and women." Given its widespread abhorrence of sex, the community became in time a tinder box for dysfunction--dry and combustible, just waiting for a spark of suspicion to set it ablaze.
Like the protagonist in the film, my friend was given to roughhousing with pre-school and elementary-grade children. However, when he disregarded warnings from squeamish parents about his obstinate playfulness, one particularly deranged grandparent went to the community constabulary and charged him with molestation--despite his and the children's denials. Soon the kids were caught in a crossfire of parental imaginings. Like the child in the film who is quickly convinced she has been abused despite her denials of it, the kids were coerced into a loss of trust in this person. When they tried to protest, they were told they were too young and innocent to see his true propensities and forbidden to associate with him. I remember going to a parent with whom my friend has been close to ask him to refrain from denunciation. He refused, boasting that he had already threatened physical violence if his former pal came near his children. The threat still stood. Ostracized by a community convinced of the worst possible guilt, my friend left Philadelphia. It has taken him more than a decade to repair the damage done to him. I wish I could use the word "heal," but I wonder if one ever full recovers from the trauma of being falsely accused of sex abuse. "The Hunt" suggests one is never allowed to heal.
You need to see this movie. You need to see what it is like to be made an outcast in this manner.
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