The Cavalier
I met the Cavalier when I worked at a summer program at Bowdoin College when I was 20. He was 34. I was a residential staff member and he was a college advisor.
He was friendly. When he learned I was from Lewiston, he told me he had just quit his job as a guidance counselor at Lewiston High School, which is where I went to high school.
He talked about how horrible Lewiston High School was and that he was in the process of suing the school district because of a race-related incident he had experienced.
As the summer progressed, the Cavalier became increasingly friendly in a way I found uncomfortable. He would ask other staff where I was, doing so enough times and asking them in such a way that they were uncomfortable. He would spend a lot of time on the first floor of the girls’ dorm when I had dorm duty, flirting with me in front of students. I was embarrassed. I told him to stop and that I was uncomfortable.
He would meet me outside of classrooms, even when I made it clear that I wanted to walk with the students. He would touch my curly hair. I told him to stop and that I was uncomfortable.
One afternoon, I was in the dorm during my dorm duty, crafting with a few students. One of the students had broken up with her boyfriend and we were trying to cheer her up. We were making friendship bracelets when the Cavalier came in. He asked if I would make him a bracelet. At this point, I was fed up with him and just said, "Nope." The students laughed.
He pulled me outside to tell me that I was "disrespecting him" in front of "the girls." I said, "You disrespect me in front of students every single day." He said he was going to smack my pretty little mouth. I told him to go fuck himself. He looked incredibly angry, grabbed his crotch and walked away.
I turned around and saw the students watching us from the window. When I went back in, one of them said, “So…that doesn’t seem healthy.” I felt so ashamed.
It became clear his behavior would not stop. I raised the issue with my boss. She asked me if I had told him to stop. I said yes, more than once. I remember telling her that I didn’t want him fired; I just wanted the harassment to stop. She talked to him and told me he wouldn’t bother me anymore.
That following weekend, I had dorm duty in the boys’ dorm. It was raining and we were letting the students watch a soccer game. The Cavalier pulled up on his motorcycle next to the dorm. I remember thinking, “Oh god, what is he about to do?” He turned off his motorcycle and stayed on it. Then he wheeled his motorcycle into the dorm.
The students were confused and looked at me. I said, “(Redacted), you need to take that outside.” He stared at me and said, “Why?” It was clear to me that he was trying to intimidate me. I said, “I can’t believe I have to say this, but motorcycles belong outside.” He responded, “What are you gonna do? You gonna tell on me?”
At that point, one of the students yelled from the kitchen for him to leave. The Cavalier left. I have never told that student how grateful I was for him that day.
I was scared. This man needed attention, no matter how negative. At the end of the summer, I was relieved to be done with having to be around him. I didn’t think I would see him again.
Fast forward 20 years later: this person was working at my daughter’s school, in the district he threatened to sue 20 years before. He was slated to be the guidance counselor for my daughter’s grade. I found out - via Google - that he had left his last school district because of sexual harassment allegations less than a year before. I had a few questions.
I sent an email reporting him to Lewiston’s superintendent, who immediately placed the Cavalier on leave. However, he was allowed to return to my daughter’s school because his former district, Maine’s RSU 21, had signed a non-disclosure agreement with him. They couldn’t talk to our district on the record about his behavior and circumstances of his resignation from RSU 21. He eventually resigned from Lewiston.
I worked with Lewiston’s Senator Peggy Rotundo on legislation to stop people like the Cavalier from moving school district to school district without proper disclosure of the misconduct they commit. I agreed to make some of the details of what happened to me public when our legislation was up for a public hearing.
For weeks, I heard from so many people (mostly women) who had been sexually harassed (and worse) by school staff. They were former students. They were current and former school staff. They were parents. They were angry, traumatized, sad, exhausted, and hopeful. Some had reported the violence perpetrated against them. Some hadn’t. Either way, in at least 90% of the conversations, survivors reported that they had watched the person who harmed them leave with no consequences, only to learn that person had been hired in yet another school district.
I also heard from several of the Cavalier’s survivors. I recognized many of his behaviors in what they told me. From what I can tell, I had it easy. It was clear that he had become emboldened over the last two decades. Most of them reported his behavior.
In district after district, school administrators and school boards, advised by attorneys from Drummond Woodsum and Brann & Isaacson, enabled The Cavalier to avoid consequences. Why? Districts were afraid he would sue them.
In conversation after conversation with survivors, we would ask, “At what point do these districts realize that the threat of us suing them is greater than the threat from this tiny man with a god complex? At what point does one of them say, “Go ahead, sue us”? At what point does this become enough of a pattern that he can’t do this anymore?”
As far as we know, it hasn’t happened yet.