One big, sordid mess

My alma mater has been in the news lately. 

And the news that's been in the news is not good.

I'm a graduate of Emmanuel College in Boston. Class of 1971. So, an old girl who was there when the college was all women. And when the comparable Catholic men's colleges like Holy Cross and Providence College were still all men. 

The school had been founded in 1919 to serve the daughters of Boston's large and fertile Catholic population. Initially, the majority of the students were the daughters of Irish immigrants, with a smattering of Italian and Lithuanian/Polish immigrant daughters thrown in. Fast forward to when I was a student there, and the school had a slightly broader geographic reach - the vast majority of "Emmas" (as we called ourselves) were from New England, New York, and New Jersey - but the demographics were largely the same: overwhelmingly white Irish Catholic (with those same smatterings), only now we were the granddaughters, not the daughters of immigrants. 

Students came primarily from Catholic high schools which had long been - and still are - feeder schools for Catholic colleges. (Wouldn't want your kiddos to lose the faith now, would you? 'Cause that'd never happen at a Catholic school...)

There were an awful lot of very bright girls at Emmanuel, young woman who, if they hadn't been fed into the Catholic college maw, would have found themselves right at home in the Seven Sisters, the Ivies, and other top schools. 

When I was there, Emmanuel had about 1,600 students - 400 per class.

But then the Holy Crosses and Providence Colleges of the world went co-ed, and a lot of the girls who'd been fed into the Catholic women's colleges were now being fed into co-ed schools.

The school's population plummetted. I think there were some years in the 1980's when there were fewer than 100 students in a class. 

Emmanuel almost went under, but thanks to the vision and management genius of its long-term President, Sister Janet Eisner - and to Emmanuel's prime location in the Fenway area of Boston - the school has survived. Among other things, Emmanuel went co-ed, and is now a good enough little Catholic college along the lines of local schools like Merrimack and Stonehill. 

I have no idea what the demographics there are now, but I believe there are a lot more first-gen-to-college, a lot more minorities. For the most part, the kids of the women in my class who I was friendly with had children who went to better known schools that are higher up the academic food chain than Emmanuel College. 

Still, the school survives. 

I haven't been an especially active alumna. 

In truth, I wish I'd been fed into one of those higher up the food chain colleges. I got a decent enough education and made a couple of sterling life-long friends, but I wish I'd gone to a school that was more diverse. (Seriously, folks, when I went to Emmanuel the food service people told us that we were the only college they managed where the students drank more tea than coffee. This was, of course, thanks to the Irish heritage shared by so many of us.) I wish I'd gone to a school that was more challenging, and, yes - snob warning - more prominent. Someplace where the name of the school was shorthand for "someone who goes here is probably pretty intelligent." (I took care of that by making sure my grad schools were top of the line. I started out in a PhD program at Columbia - back in the day before Columbia folded and became a big mess - and, after figuring out that a political science PhD was not for me, went to business school at MIT.) I also wish I'd gone to a school with men. (Also made up for that with Columbia and MIT.)

As I said, I haven't been an especially active alumna. That is until a decade ago when I got involved in the Dorothy Day Lecture Series, which, each April, hosts a speaker on a social justice topic. The women on the DDL committee - most of them from my class or class-adjacent - are all wonderful: deeply compassionate, deeply empathetic, highly accomplished, highly intelligent. I was friendly-ish with a couple of them when we were in school, but now I count all of them as friends. 

We were just coming off the high of another successful lecture - this one on Gaza, the most fraught (and controversial) topic we've ever taken on - when the article in the online Boston Globe appeared, at pretty much the same time I found a midnight email from Beth Ross, Emmanuel's president, giving the alumni/ae a head's up on what was just breaking:

A 29-year-old assistant admissions administrator at Emmanuel College who allegedly offered to pay prospective students “for some fun” was arrested last week on charges of attempted sex trafficking of a minor, according to federal prosecutors. (Source: Boston Globe)

Jacob Henriques, an Emmanuel graduate (gulp!), offered one prospective student $400 for that fun, and also asked her whether he wanted him to share some porn videos and pictures with her. And then he sent them anyway. The young woman, a 17 year old senior who had just committed to attending EC, had no idea who he was or how he'd gotten her number. Turns out, he'd gotten her number from the admissions system, which he, of course, had access to. (He had met her on a campus tour.)

The young woman blocked him from texting, so he tried emailing her. (He approached at least three other prospective students on well.) Among other things, Henriques had asked her whether she was up for participating in a "gangbang." 

Not clear how Emmanuel first found out about these incidents, but I'm guessing a parent contacted the school and they either recognized the phone number, or figured out the Henriques had had contact with the students, and had accessed the systems to get info on them. But the school jumped on it right away - no cover up, no handle it internally nonsense.

Here's part of Emmanuel's statement:

“Because the safety and well-being of all is our highest priority, and consistent with established policies, we took strong action upon learning of this issue, immediately contacting law enforcement and launching an investigation that led to the prompt termination of the individual,” the statement said. “We have cooperated fully with authorities from the moment this matter came to our attention and will continue to do so.”

Henriques has been fired, but that's the least of his worries. 

If convicted as charged, Henriques faces the possibility of life in prison with a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years, [US Attorney Leah B.] Foley’s statement said. 

Yes, the US Department of Justice is after this guy. (Good to see the locals are focused on something other than maliciously going after those who Trump perceives as the enemy.)

My first thoughts are with the victims of this perverted moron. I know that today's kids are a lot less naive, a lot more sophisticated, than the girls of my era. But still, inviting young women to a paid-for "gangbang?" How colossally sordid.

My second thoughts are with Emmanuel and its reputation.

This story has been all over the place, from local coverage to The New York Times, People Magazine, network TV news, and (no surprise) the scurrilous rag that is the New York Post. When I was in my doctor's waiting room the other day, they had a local news show on the TV. Flowing along the chyron was a headline about this story. 

I can only imagine how the students, faculty, and adminstrators feel about this. 

I can only imagine that a lot of folks - not just the immediate victims - are rethinking Emmanuel College as an option.

Everyone's tried so hard to keep the school going when so many small, underendowed, small liberal arts colleges are going under. I have never been all that optimstic about the school's chance for survival, and have long thought that "the play" for Emmanuel is to become part of Boston College, providing that (also Catholic) school with an urban (highly valuable) campus. Maybe BC would relo their nursing school there? Emmanuel is in a very hospital-heavy area. It would make sense. To me anyway.

All I know is that these young woman didn't deserve to get swept into this big, sordid mess. And my alma mater didn't deserve it, either.