An arts school where Epstein allegedly preyed on students reveals decades of abuse
By Alma Cordero ·
When a prestigious institution like Interlochen Center for the Arts releases an apology—a carefully worded statement from its president, Trey Devey, promising that it is…
The Illusion That Time Heals Institutional Sin
When a prestigious institution like Interlochen Center for the Arts releases an apology—a carefully worded statement from its president, Trey Devey, promising that it is “fundamentally different” than what happened decades ago—it sounds warm. It sounds responsible. But I have learned over years of watching borders and communities bleed out under state neglect that nothing about a place’s statement changes the geometry of its history. The structures of power remain; only the wallpaper gets redone.
The story emerging from Interlochen, detailed across reports by NPR, People.com, and AP News, is not merely a collection of bad memories. It is a ledger of systemic failure. We are talking about decades—from the 1950s through the 2010s—where an acclaimed arts school became a playground for predator after predator. The sheer scope is staggering: nearly fifty adults implicated in misconduct, and seventy accounts collected by Sanghavi Law Office detailing physical conduct of a sexual nature.
The pattern was simple, and devastatingly effective: vulnerability. Interlochen’s structure allowed powerful men—benefactors like Jeffrey Epstein, who attended as a camper in 1967 and donated over $400,000 to the school; faculty members; administrators—to have unfettered access to students whose primary connection was to their art, not to their own safety.
When Mentorship Becomes Predation
The specifics of the abuse are what should keep us awake at night. We hear Paul Busch’s recollection: "A lot of my desire was to prove that I was enough... That I was good enough and that I was worthy of love." It is a quote heavy with longing, because it describes exactly how predators operate—they don't just take; they exploit the deepest, most desperate need for validation.
Consider Thomas Clower, the ballet teacher who pleaded guilty to abusing Busch in 2005. He requested to be Busch’s mentor, wrapping that professional trust around a deeply personal violation. The details are chillingly specific: an email calling questions about sexual activity "inappropriate"; Clower putting his hand on Busch's upper thigh and then reaching into his pants. This wasn't random misconduct; it was the calculated abuse of authority—the teacher who knows how to make you feel special, making the violation seem like a private secret shared between two people in power.
The report noted that adults were able to have one-on-one interactions with students while children had limited communication with their families and were vulnerable due to age, sexual identity, and lack of experience. This is not an accident; it is the structural failure of oversight. The institution failed its most basic duty: to protect those who are at their most fragile, relying on the goodwill of men whose primary concern was reputation or donation money.
The Shared Architecture of Denial
The response from Interlochen—the apologies, the promises that they have implemented "comprehensive safety policies"—is a performance designed for maximum PR impact and minimum moral reckoning. They try to use the passage of time as an antidote to guilt: “While the vast majority of the incidents described in the investigation took place many decades ago... the passage of time does not diminish the experiences of our alumni.”
This is where the memory, the long view, gets its teeth into the argument. This institutional pattern—the powerful organization that protects its own reputation over the truth and the victim—is not unique to arts schools or even border towns. It is a recurring moral pathology. We have seen this exact mechanism play out in the Catholic sexual abuse scandal, where chapters of religious orders wielded immense trust and authority, creating environments where misconduct flourished for decades because the institution was more invested in its own sacred narrative than the safety of its children.
The shared mechanism is identical: when an organization’s identity—be it a faith tradition or a prestigious alumni network—is threatened by scandal, the first thing that gets protected is the reputation of the powerful men within it, and the second thing to suffer is the truth told by the victim. The promise of "accountability" becomes nothing more than another line item on an insurance policy for public opinion.
The law can prosecute a man like Clower, but it cannot rebuild trust in an institution that treats trauma as merely a PR liability. They offer funds for counseling; they do not offer genuine atonement.
What Interlochen needs to understand is that the abuse of students by men with access and power—whether at a boarding school or within a cathedral—is fundamentally about control, nothing more. And until an institution accepts that its primary loyalty must be to the living survivors, rather than to the memory of its own gilded history, those apologies will ring hollow.