A 97-page report released Tuesday details more than 70 instances of sexual misconduct against students at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, a prestigious boarding school south of Traverse City, Michigan. The abuse spans seven decades — from the 1950s through the 2010s — and names 47 accused adults.
Jeffrey Epstein is on the list, but he's not even close to the worst one.
What the investigation found, in the investigators' own words, was "simply, devastating." More than one-third of the 47 accused adults are now deceased, meaning they will never face accountability of any kind. None of the 47 are currently employed by the school.
Interlochen President Trey Devey called the findings "heartbreaking" and "shocking" in a written statement. "The abuse described in the report is absolutely contrary to everything this institution stands for," Devey said. He added that cases involving living accused individuals have been forwarded to the Grand Traverse County Prosecutor's office.
Matthew Curtis, a senior shareholder at Sommers Schwartz, P.C. who represents multiple survivors, was more blunt. "It was basically a free for all there," Curtis said. "It was the same thing over and over again."
The report names specific faculty and administrators with extensive histories at the school. Byron Hanson, who worked at Interlochen from 1960 to 2015, drew seven independent direct reports of sexual misconduct from former students describing abuse in the 1960s and 1970s. John "Jack" Hood, who served in faculty and administrative roles from 1963 to 1979 and continued seasonal work until 2004, had four independent reports filed against him. Charlie McWhorter, a trustee from 1970 to 1999, had two independent reports. Thomas Clower, an arts faculty member from 2003 to 2005, was criminally convicted of sexual conduct in 2005.
Then there's Jeffrey Epstein. He attended Interlochen in the 1960s as a student and later became a donor, giving more than $400,000 to the school between 1990 and 2003. Two former students reported that Epstein paid for their flights to visit him and was "frequently inappropriate with them physically." One former student said Epstein offered to pay her tuition but withdrew his financial support after she refused his alleged sexual advances. The school even had a building named after him — Epstein Lodge — which was only renamed after his 2008 criminal conviction.
The investigation was initially scoped to focus on the 1960s and 1970s, but expanded to cover all years once the scope of the problem became clear. Devey insisted the expansion was thorough: "There was no period of time that was blacked out or in any way not subject to this investigation." The report, as reported by Bridge Michigan, covers abuse from every era of the school's existence.
Some will point to the fact that Interlochen commissioned this report voluntarily. That it's being transparent. That it forwarded names to prosecutors. And those are real steps. But they're steps taken in 2024, about conduct that started in the 1950s. The question isn't whether the current president is handling the fallout correctly. The question is how an institution cycles through seven decades of predatory adults — with students reporting it, with patterns repeating across generations — and treats each case as an isolated incident until a law firm finally maps the pattern on paper.