A Million Dollar Question
By: Daniel Zhang
It was the end of August when we called. There were still 48 minutes before my shift ended, but nobody was around when I surveyed the restaurant, so I ducked into the restroom before accepting the Messenger dial. “Hey,” I said over the phone, trying to be casual. “How have you all been?”
“What the f*uck,” a friend said in response. “What the f*uck is going on?”
Just seconds before, the familiar chime of an Outlook notification heralded the vague subject line “A Letter to Our Community.” It was the summer before my upper year, a week before school would begin in the fall of 2020. When I read the unspecific subject line, I expected news about the pandemic—more specifics about masking or social distancing guidelines.
I began to read. “I am sharing distressing information in the attached letter about a former faculty member, whom many of you may know…” From the body of the email, which did not delve into details, I thought someone had passed away before I clicked to expand the attached pdf.
“I am writing to inform the Exeter community that the Rockingham County Attorney’s office today has filed criminal charges against former math instructor Szczesny (Jerzy) Kaminski for multiple counts of sexual assault involving a former Exeter student,” Principal Rawson’s letter began. Oh, I had thought. Another? I swiped away from the email, looking up again for new customers, my boss roaming around. Then, after a few seconds, an almost comically long period, I realized that I recognized the name. Every Tuesday night for the past year, he had been the one to say “Thank you, Daniel” as I checked in. On a January morning after a poor math midterm, he slowly explained the limit definition of e to me. And now, he was a name on a Messenger notification to a familiar group chat that had rested dormant for most of the summer— “142 Exec + News,” The Exonian’s News group chat: “Kaminski???”
At the time, I was serving as a News Editor for the paper, and knew that my afternoon was now going to be very, very long. Within minutes, we were on a call. “Okay, okay,” an editor said, “So he was arrested? So let’s reach out to the Rockingham County Attorney’s Office.”
“I can do that,” I said instinctually, even though I still technically had a shift to finish. “I’ll write the email. You want me to—”
“CC, yeah, and add [the name of another editor] to that. Time of arraignment, initial statement, affidavit. You know.”
For a while, the call went silent. But I knew what we were all thinking. The initial frenetic groove of divvying up assignments was so familiar, it almost felt comfortable. It was something we recognized, that we knew how to navigate without question. But after that, we did not know what we were doing. A teacher we had seen on the paths for years, who had taught our math classes, who, in my case, was my interim adviser who I had seen every Wednesday for the past year—was a rapist.
*
I left Mock Trial to make more time for The Exonian, but I found myself oddly grateful for my time in the club when I first received the affidavit. A few hours after the news, we called Tammy Jackson, the media point person for the New Hampshire Judicial Branch, for a copy of the Rockingham Superior Court’s affidavits— “We’re a newspaper,” we had said hopefully, conveniently omitting the “high school” part in hope that she would consider us professional enough. That night, she confirmed that yes, she would send the affidavit over—and that we could call in to the arraignment tomorrow, at 7:00 a.m.
I don’t consider myself a sensitive or easily disturbed person—I don’t mean to say this to fashion myself as some kind of stoic, but it’s just not really who I am. But I will never forget groggily dialing the number Ms. Jackson provided at 6:57 a.m. the next day and almost immediately afterwards hearing Kaminski’s low voice confirm that he was present.
Right after the arraignment, we began to dissect the affidavit. The reality of the case began to settle in as we encountered the initials of adults we recognized—administrators, faculty members, probably the same cold recognition many of you felt when you read the Vanity Fair article and stumbled upon specific names unique to the milieu of Exeter such as “William Rawson” and “Dutch House.” Names that felt familiar, comfortable to us. It used to feel like we were all in on the same inside reference, the minutiae of Exeter’s landscape uniquely ours, only recognizable among our community. But now, it wasn’t just us who were “in” on it—thousands of readers would now recognize these names. It was the same uncomfortable feeling that something private had been exposed when the affidavit recounted the actions of teachers I had in class just months before with the clinical objectivity of legal narration.
We reread the affidavit over and over when a terrible realization began to settle, amidst all the legal jargon, interview transcripts, and archived texts. It is difficult to summarize the Kaminski situation in full for newer students, so I will direct you towards The Exonian article we produced for background information necessary for reading this article further: https://theexonian.net/news/details-kaminski. I will excerpt the most relevant portions just a little farther below if you really don’t have the time. Here is how Principal Rawson described the Kaminski situation in his initial email:
“In 2016, after community members brought forward concerns, the Academy reported suspected boundary violations by Mr. Kaminski to the Exeter Police Department (EPD). EPD closed the case after consulting with the family and completing their investigation. The Academy placed Mr. Kaminski on written notice that certain actions would result in his termination.”
There is one piece of critical information—our million dollar question—conveniently missing from Rawson’s paragraph that was present in the affidavit. Now hopefully, you have heeded my earlier advice and read The Exonian article which fully explains the situation—it will get confusing without this necessary exposition. But as promised, here is the excerpt from The Exonian:
“In the fall of 2015, the Dean’s Office received a report of Kaminski coming and going from the anonymous student’s dormitory at odd hours. Kaminski frequently drove this student to music lessons in Boston, and he tutored them privately within his own residence at 74 Front Street. The Academy received more reports of suspicious interactions between Kaminski and the student in 2016. Notably, faculty members reported an incident where the student had been late to check-in. Dorm faculty later discovered they had been at Kaminski’s residence.”
The Academy opened an investigation in 2016, and the student’s parents were notified. The student’s mother reportedly stated that they “trust[ed] Kaminski and [were] not concerned.” Two anonymous deans met with Kaminski and discussed boundary issues; Kaminski was warned not to be alone with the student and not to drive them anywhere.
The student denied all allegations against Kaminski over the course of the investigation, and their parents expressed a desire not to have the concerns investigated. Detective Patrick Mulholland of the Exeter Police Department still described concern over these interactions and the possibility of grooming. The Academy issued a second warning in April 2016, requesting that Kaminski discontinue private interactions with the student.
On May 9, 2016, a month later, Campus Safety received reports that the student was seen walking to Kaminski’s apartment. Kaminski was later seen driving the student home. Campus Safety reported this incident to police. Mulholland raised to the student’s parents that Kaminski’s disregard of employer warnings was another sign of grooming.”
I imagined I was back in Mock Trial again, playing out a cross examination in my mind. All material within quotations is verbatim from the sworn legal affidavit in State of New Hampshire v. Kaminski, publicly available now on the New Hampshire Judicial Court’s website, so that I avoid confusion and move as closely to the facts as possible. Read closely.
In April of 2016, “Kaminski was told not to be alone with [the student] and not to drive her anywhere.” Yes—this is a direct quote from the affidavit.
On May 9 of 2016, “[the student] was seen walking to Kaminski’s apartment...he gave [the student] a ride home afterward.” Again, yes—a direct quote from the affidavit. A direct violation of the warning he received just a month prior.
“[A former dean] made contact with Kaminski via email regarding this instance.” So yes, the administration was aware—and apparently cared enough to send him an email.
But one critical fact remains. If this was Mock Trial, I would be staring straight at the judge as I delivered this line: but Kaminski was not fired afterwards—even after he explicitly violated the two boundaries he was ordered to observe after multiple reports from multiple community members, even after the Exeter Police Department explicitly warned they suspected grooming, the only consequences were an email and a letter. Kaminski’s employment was not terminated.
I would know his employment was not terminated. Because two years later, in the fall of 2018, he lifted my suitcase into the third floor of Front Street and welcomed me to Exeter.
*
The million-dollar question is why. It’s the same question an editor asked me to send to Rawson at the time when The Exonian was brainstorming follow-up questions. “But,” the editor said casually, “you know there’s no way he responds.”
Perhaps this was an unfair assumption, but it was one that made sense to me at the time. After all, if the administration had omitted this critical fact in their initial email, why would they now explain it? When an email comes “From the Principal,” it is a fair assumption that the text has been painstakingly edited and revised, with keen attention paid to its construction and possible impacts. Consequently, the information that is included—and what is not included—all becomes deliberate. You don’t just forget to include that Kaminski did the explicit thing he was told not to do, but virtually no notable consequences came as a result. In an effort as carefully measured and considered as the administration’s emails, you either choose to include it or you don’t.
The reason why I bring up this assumption is because it indicates a more fundamental problem with the Academy’s response to sexual assault cases in the present. There is no trust. Independent of any policy solution or public statement, the mutable, elusive, yet perhaps most critical quality of trust in the administration is missing from the students right now. The feeling is almost palpable, omnipresent on campus. This was the moment where I had lost trust in “the administration.”
I use the term “the administration'' carefully. One rule I had when I served as Editor-in-Chief of The Exonian was to always replace “the administration” with “the Academy.” Because, I reasoned, “the administration” substituted real, hard-working people with a shadowy specter of authority, distancing them from the rest of the community which they, too, were a part of. Now, I think “the administration” is the appropriate nomenclature. Because they have lost our trust and in the eye of the students become a specter of authority rather than an organ of real people. In power dynamics as consequential as the one between students and their in loco parentis, perception is the reality.
I hoped that my fellow editor would be proven wrong, that there was no million dollar question, just a misunderstanding that Principal Rawson could hopefully clear up. I sent over our million-dollar question in this form:
“We would like to clarify a notice from your letter to the PEA community on August 24 sharing that criminal charges were filed against Mr. Kaminski. This letter mentioned that ‘The Academy placed Mr. Kaminski on written notice that certain actions would result in his termination.’
The facts of the case now reveal that Mr. Kaminski did not abide by Academy instructions to not drive and be alone with the anonymous student; however, he was not terminated after he breached both instructions. Why was Mr. Kaminski not terminated in this situation?”
The response from the administration:
“The Academy learned of Mr. Kaminski’s breaches and failures to abide by Academy instructions this year, and on that basis terminated Mr. Kaminski on April 7, 2020.”
If your reaction is—huh?, you would not be alone, because that’s the exact thing I typed into the News group chat when I first saw this response (the quote listed above, by the way, can be found in The Exonian’s fall 2020 archives). The Academy learned of Mr. Kaminski’s breaches and failures to abide by Academy instructions this year, which at the time would have been 2020? Was “[the student in question]” not “seen walking to Kaminski’s apartment” in May of 2016 as the affidavit said? Was it not also seen that “[Kaminski] gave [the student] a ride home afterward” in May of 2016? And wasn’t it the case that “[a former dean] made contact with Kaminski via email regarding this instance”—this time, in September of 2016? At the risk of sounding insufferable, 2016 is pretty definitely before 2020. So what was going on?
We also asked in the same initial email:
“Additionally, could you kindly provide us with the written notice? If that would prove difficult, we would appreciate it if you could share when the letter was sent, who sent it, and, if possible, an overview of its contents. We would particularly like to understand what these certain actions were listed as.”
They responded:
“The Dean of Faculty sent a letter to Mr. Kaminski in September, 2016, placing him on written notice that failure to abide by the letter would result in his termination. We treat personnel files as confidential and cannot provide the written notice.”
There are so many questions left. But amidst the constellation of confusion, one fact becomes abundantly clear from deduction. The school did not think Kaminski’s direct violation of his warning to not drive or be alone with the student in question was deserving of termination.
Maybe you don’t think this fact is a problem in itself. But have you considered the context of the full case yet? That multiple community members had first raised concerns in October of 2015, and even more raised concerns in April of 2016? That the Exeter Police Department had issued an explicit warning on May 23, 2016 that one of their detectives, Patrick Mulholland, suspected grooming was happening? And all that was sent was an email and a letter? Perhaps this is a good time to remind readers that the background article is required reading for this one to make sense.
But at the end of the day, this is an opinion article. I can’t tell you what to think, but I will tell you what I personally think about this one fact we have reached, in view of everything I know about Exeter’s history with sexual assault: it is, without a doubt, the most grievously irresponsible decision I have ever heard the Academy make with regards to addressing sexual assault on campus. It was a decision that endangered every member of our community. I would hope that as a concerned citizen of the Exeter community I am not alone in this opinion.
*
As much as I love The Exonian, I have to admit, at times, it does not feel entirely necessary. Yes, we knew so-and-so came to Assembly, and yes, we know this policy which was just announced in an all-school email does this. But this was the first time I had stumbled upon a real information vacuum. This was the first time our article would be undoubtedly consequential. This was the first time I had to ask myself: if not us, then who?
I researched the articles by professional news outlets—AP, Seacoast Media, Union Leader, etc.—to see if any other newspaper had noted the 2016 discrepancy. They did not. In other words, the only place where the requisite information to form the million-dollar question is the legal affidavit and The Exonian. The only place where the million-dollar question is asked is The Exonian.
I don’t say this as a means of inflating the value of the article we wrote, or patting ourselves on the back. I say this because I want you to entertain for a moment: if that article did not exist, how many people on campus would think the Kaminski case was an incident that was promptly and comprehensively addressed by the administration? How many people would have thought it was something the school handled “correctly”? Can you consider, for a second, an alternate Exeter where the administration has our unearned trust at the expense of the truth? What does that Exeter look like to you?
A prep came to talk to me about Friday’s protest (an inspiring act of bravery, and an incredible feat of strength from the student leaders of Exonians Against Sexual Assault (EASA), Feminist Union, Transitions, and other campus organizations) the other day. He asked a clarifying question— “Well, aren’t all these cases from the 80s? So has the school mishandled a case that’s happened in… the past decade?”
A comprehensive reading of Nancy Jo Sales’ Vanity Fair article yields a resounding yes. The 2019 protest comes to mind, and though Sales’ story may have happened outside of this decade, it was most certainly responded to within the past few years. But this question revealed an erroneous impression that I was quite disturbed by—by no fault of the prep’s. The impression that all we are talking about, taking action against and protesting is “old news” from the past being dredged up on the shore in the present. It is not. The school’s decisive inaction took place in 2016, a mere five years ago. As a consequence, Kaminski was still teaching at this school just last winter.
Here’s another point, perhaps even more critical: why were four high school kids the decisive factor between our community’s awareness of the administration’s mishandling of the Kaminski case and our community’s blissful ignorance?
Again, I am not trying to portray the authors of that article and myself as valiant defenders of truth. I am very conscious of being self-indulgent in writing this article. I am just quite literally saying that it is so, so irresponsible (and frankly, stupid) to have untrained, non-professional children distributing that very critical portion of information that has so critically defined the landscape of trust between students and the administration. If a similar case were to come out today, I honestly would not trust myself—not because I doubt my commitment to sound journalism, but because functionally speaking, it just makes no sense to rely upon high schoolers to do a job professionals should be doing. It’s so irresponsible. What if we messed up? What if we had gotten a critical fact wrong? What if we had not presented information in the most trauma-informed manner possible and hurt someone?
But what if we didn’t try? What if we let that information vacuum go unattended?
Here are my two roads diverging in a yellow wood: let the Academy’s mistake in 2016 go unknown, or let high schoolers take their best shot at responsibly communicating it. But this dilemma would not exist in the first place if Principal Rawson just told the full story in his email. If the administration just owned up to the uncomfortable elephant in the room and said: yes, Kaminski did breach his explicit warning from the Academy, and yes, we did not fire him when we did.
The conclusion reached from the affidavit—that the Academy just didn’t think Kaminski’s violation of the warning warranted termination of his employment—is honestly an acceptable answer. Well, define acceptable—I think it would be a very, very stupid, irresponsible, and reckless decision, and one I would frown upon heavily as a student, but it would be an answer. In the absence of an answer, however frustrating that answer may be, mistrust persists. And that is all I feel right now: mistrust.
Exonians are naturally cynical. When you spend so much time in class encouraged to critically dissect all information you receive, the cynic in you naturally grows. I wrote earlier in this article that the absence of information must be just as deliberate as the presence of information in a letter as carefully prepared as the one Rawson sent—this is not the kind of information that gets accidentally omitted. The cynic in me has to ask: “Did the administration not include Kaminski’s violation of his warning because they were hoping nobody would find out?” And would nobody have ever found out if some random high schooler didn’t call Tammy Jackson that August afternoon?
I want to be proven wrong. But I haven’t been yet.
*
I have a difficult personal relationship with the concept of “emotional labor,” as many other student leaders do too. The Kaminski article felt momentous, a critical service to our community that exemplified The Exonian’s potential. But at the same time, what is momentous is not always good for one’s personal health.
A friend of mine always used to say that I was a “hardo.” Again, I don’t mention this because I like to indulge in an image of myself as someone who can trudge past all of this. I say this to articulate: it is completely possible to feel you have the emotional capacity and professional competency to address an issue as a student leader (and that may very well be the reality), and it is also completely possible to suffer unforeseen personal consequences to your mental health in the future and navigate deeply inappropriate situations as a consequence of taking on the work. Those two truths can co-exist. When we published our coverage of Kaminski, I felt capable, confident. I felt that I had surmounted an obstacle that proved my professionalism and ability as a high school journalist. But in the week following, I felt scared, anxious. Four days after the case, the advisers of The Exonian reached out with an offer to meet with Counseling and Psychological Services to discuss the article.
I texted a fellow editor and friend right after to ask if they would go. “Idk,” they responded.
Later that night, we called. I would hate to make this article about myself, but I feel that it is constructive to share this. We both confessed to each other that we had been having nightmares ever since. It’s difficult to articulate the scope of what we witnessed in the affidavit and the arraignment, especially because we chose to omit so much of the more graphic and horrifying details in the final article. The most awful text messages, graphic descriptions, and disgusting transcripts seared themselves into my mind. I didn’t eat much until the next week. We still talked about the consequences of that article on our personal health—as friends, and as editors—throughout the rest of the year. Every time I walked by his former classroom, my feet skidded over the linoleum to a stop, if only just for a second. I still had nightmares until around March of 2021, the beginning of my upper spring. They began again last Monday, after I finished reading Sales’ Vanity Fair article.
I feel so odd writing that I “had nightmares.” I feel like a little kid peering into my mom’s room at night to tell her I had a bad dream. It’s somewhat humiliating to disclose this in the pages of the school newspaper, and as much as I have disclaimed otherwise, I do want people on campus to view me as a serious and capable leader. Even though I shouldn’t, I almost feel like I’m just complaining, asking for your attention.
The brave vulnerability of student leaders on Friday reminded me that being frank and open with my feelings does not contradict my right to be taken seriously. And for that, I cannot thank them enough. There is more than one way to lead. Leadership through vulnerability is the bravest way I know.
*
A leftover instinct from when I was an editor for The Exonian is to ask myself: okay, Daniel, what is the purpose of this article? If my reader could only walk away with a few takeaways, what would you say?
Now that I am a writer, I can more explicitly summarize. One—I want you to keep asking our million dollar question: why was Kaminski not fired after he violated his warning in May of 2016?
Two—I want an answer to that question.
Three—I want to know why the administration’s initial email did not acknowledge Kaminski’s violation of his warning.
Four—I want to emphasize how frightening it is that if The Exonian did not publish its article, Kaminski’s violation would not have been written anywhere except a murky legal affidavit few people even have access to, and how even more frightening it is that four high school students were in charge of keeping the world I just described an “if” statement rather than a reality. If the administration had just been frank and forthright in including that information in their initial email, in owning up to that million dollar decision five years ago, that burden would have been lifted from our shoulders—which, personal burden and stress aside, is the functionally responsible choice for handling sensitive information and the community’s wellbeing.
Five—A faculty member recently asked me out of genuine goodwill what the labor student leaders take on, as referenced at the protest, looks like. I don’t even consider myself much of a leader anymore, or to carry that heavy of a burden, but that question reminded me that we should be communicating, sharing our own stories of what labor looks like to us so that we can all understand one another more—students and adults alike. None of our experiences are the same, but they all need to be heard. In order for the administration to adequately remedy the burden placed upon student leaders, they need to be listening. In order for us to support one another as part of a community, we need to be listening. The writer Kazuo Ishiguro said in his 2017 Nobel Prize lecture, “In the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it also feel this way to you?” Well, this is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it also feel this way to you?
So what now? Demand answers. Thank the leaders of EASA, Fem Club, Transitions, and anyone else you know who was affiliated with the protest’s organization, and don’t forget about last Friday. Reflect on the significance of this moment in Exeter’s history to you. Stay aware and updated on how our community is organizing. Share your own story in whatever medium and capacity you see fit. And above all, keep listening to one another. Reserve judgement and pursue understanding. We are most Exonian when we are listening to one another.
