Time for BSU to stop hiding info on child rape cases

The top brass at Bridgewater State University apparently still feel it is their right not to tell the public who knew what and when in child rape cases at the school. The university and its lawyers continue to provide severely redacted or totally blanked out documents that might answer some of questions regarding events 23 months ago at the day-care center the school runs on campus. One student who was present to help care for the children there is due in court next month. He will answer to charges of digitally raping two little boys, one 4 years old and the other 5 years old. The former director of the campus Children's Center faces charges that include reckless child endangerment and witness intimidation for allegedly telling teachers at the center to keep quiet about what happened. The former director, Judith Ritacco, says she told her bosses everything that was going on without delay and has been made the scapegoat by the university. The underlying question is one of responsibility - who created the situation that prosecutors say allowed child abuse to take place.

The timeline for what happened and when it began is difficult or impossible to figure out, and the university has done everything in its power to keep it that way. Most recently, The Enterprise obtained copies of emails between Ritacco and the person who was her boss, the assistant vice president for student affairs, Brian Salvaggio. There were also emails between Salvaggio and the next person up the chain, Jason Pina, the university's vice president of student affairs when the child rape cases first surfaced. But the emails obtained by The Enterprise were redacted, in whole or in part. Parts of a timeline of events were blacked out in at least one email. Another email, from Salvaggio to Pina, was entirely blacked out.

The university's actions in regard to the emails mimic its response since the first public knowledge of trouble at the Children's Center in March, 2015. The former president of the university, Dana Mohler-Faria, was roundly criticized for what the parents of children who attended the child care program were told and not told about what had happened. The Enterprise filed a request for information under the state's Public Records Law and was told it would cost $60,000 to produce copies of documents and emails that should have been available with relatively little expenditure of manpower or resources. A group of parents hired a lawyer to try to pry loose information such as when the first report of inappropriate activity at the Children's Center surfaced, who knew about the child abuse reports and what was done about it. The university resisted the parents' effort and the state Attorney General's Office argued in court on behalf of the university. The judge refused to dismiss the parents' legal action and told the Attorney General's Office it was off base in trying to defend the university instead of seeking to uncover the truth.

The heavily blanked-out emails provided to The Enterprise come from a month before the alleged rapes and for weeks thereafter. Why emails from before the reported assaults should be something the university wants to keep secret is a mystery to us and to the parents who trusted their little boys and girls to the university's care. If this information does not come out at the criminal trials, we wonder if Bridgewater State will ever reveal who knew what and when about what was happening at the child care center.

YOUR VIEWS

Is it past time for Bridgewater State to stop hiding who knew what and when about child rapes on campus?

WRITE:

The Enterprise, 1324 Belmont St., Unit 102, Brockton, MA 02301

E-MAIL: letters@enterprisenews.com