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| He's always something... |
After a career as a “product defense” specialist for the petrochemical and pesticide industry, Attorney Rawson was hired by PEA’s Trustees as Interim Principal Instructor in 2018. Soon after, he was promoted to full Principal in a perfunctory process. Previously, he had served as a PEA Trustee from 2004 to 2016.
Attorney/Principal Rawson (APR) might be seen as part of the national trend of colleges and universities turning to attorneys to lead academic institutions. Given the increasingly complex regulatory environment for academia, attorneys specializing in such work are being called to serve in leadership roles once reserved for professional academics. However, attorneys are not exempt from the Rules of Professional Conduct for donning a cap and gown.
During his tenure as a PEA Trustee, APR’s contributions to his alma mater included his professional skills. PEA has a “working” board more typical to small not-for-profits and startups lacking resources. Unlike “executive” boards where members are often cultivated for their ability to make large financial donations, PEA’s all-alumni trustees are recruited for the professional skills they have traditionally offered on a volunteer basis. As such, APR would have been expected to provide legal counsel pro bono to the school. That experience apparently qualified him for the unlikely role as Principal Instructor.
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| The Product Defenseman at work (link to video) |
Likewise, his experience on the PEA board is problematic. Two of the most significant governance failures in the institution’s history occurred on Attorney/Trustee Rawson’s watch. First, the so-called “Goldenheim Affair” in 2007-2008, was quietly resolved after the prospect of public exposure. Then, the “Schubart Matter” brought longstanding mismanagement of campus sexual assault into public view in 2016. This brought unwelcome media attention that threatened to tarnish the institution’s reputation. The Schubart Matter extended past Attorney/Trustee Rawson’s service on the PEA board. It set in motion the issues that had him installed as Principal and that subsequently became of concern to the MBBO (Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers).
In 2018, the school’s principal resigned unexpectedly. Her tenure, the shortest in the institution’s 200+ year history, was defined by attempts to grapple with the Schubart Matter and its underlying causes. Interim leadership was needed, it was said, until a full search for a permanent principal could be conducted. Trustee President John “Tony” Downer stated that the interim principal’s primary task was “bringing closure to the journey we have been on over the past few years, addressing our past shortcomings and flaws in the realm of sexual misconduct and endeavoring to provide support and bring comfort to those who have experienced harm.”
Attorney Rawson had been a party to those “past shortcomings.” Hiring him ran counter to the counsel the Trustees had received. A study commissioned to identify the governance flaws underlying the scandal and suggest fixes called for an outsider’s objectivity. Faculty, too, “pushed on the need to bring people from outside the Exeter family onto the board.”
Regardless, Attorney Rawson was the Trustees’ man. What was normally the sole non-alumni spot on the board would be taken by this insider. His work would draw heavily on his product defense expertise – the product here being PEA’s tarnished repute. Despite the inherent conflicts of interest, he would be entrusted with addressing past and present school leadership failures.
More on the Goldenheim Affair
Before getting into the substance of Attorney Rawson's troubled relationship with the New Hampshire Rules of Professional Conduct (mostly surrounding his mistreatment of once-beloved former faculty member David Weber), let's delve more deeply into Trustee Rawson's checkered past.
I first became aware of the "Goldenheim Affair" reading the affidavit for now-convicted sex offender Jerzy Kaminski's arrest. Kaminski had messaged his victim, apparently more worried about his bad blood with the new Principal than with his crimes:
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| Rawson: no need for pesky recordings |
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| The Exonian 5/18/2007 |
Not everybody thought this was a good idea.
One faculty member was so offended that he posted clippings about Goldenheim's misdeeds on his classroom door. That wasn't enough. He disrupted a discipline case refusing to hold a student to account for petty misdeeds while a trustee was honored despite major crimes. So much for the school's moral education mission! Of course, the teacher was none other than the now-notorious Kaminski.
Soon after, an alumnus threatened to make a public stink if Goldenheim didn't walk. The board caved not because it was wrong to have a monster in their midst. They did it because they were worried it might look bad if they didn't.
Thus ended the Goldenheim affair.
The lesson of this sordid story? A future child molesting sex offender had a better moral compass than the PEA board - including the man who would someday become Principal Instructor.
If you're just joining us here, don't worry. You can catch up by checking past postings. But what's coming in the next few installments will be self-explanatory.
I'll close now with the mission statement I included in the report I made to the school back in 2016 - which, in light of current events, is even more pertinent:
...it is important to appreciate how this material is historically and culturally significant. It should be preserved - and even made public at the appropriate time. Whether-or-not the Academy has the strength to be fully open about what happened during the O'Donnell Era now, the full record (if it remains) provides an invaluable window to social historians, cultural anthropologists and others interested in seeing the inner workings of a narcissistic organization. Exeter is a community that, writ small, mirrors the larger culture. Those wanting to understand the generation just past will find this of extraordinary value.
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