HILARY
SIMON

How grooming starts

Rutledge’s nickname was Mr. Wonderful. He walked the hallways like a rock star, surrounded by students who adored him. He was married with two daughters and lived on campus. He came to Hilary’s dorm room at night during check-in rounds, sat on the edge of her bed and listened to her talk. “For the first time, I felt like there was an adult listening to me,” she said. “That was the first stage of grooming. But at the time, as a 14-year-old, I felt special.” He asked her to join the cross-country team he was coaching. He ran beside her. He told her about his marriage. He told her he loved her. It took two years of slow, deliberate boundary erosion before the abuse became physical. By then, she believed he was her best friend.

What everyone saw and nobody stopped

He held her hand in hallways. He groped her in the cross-country van with teammates in the back seat. He pulled her aside during assemblies. A friend walked into his classroom and found his hands under Hilary’s shirt. The friend told a dorm parent. The dorm parent told her to go back to her room. Years earlier, another student had reported that Rutledge was having sex with a girl. That student was expelled and made to write an apology letter. “For 33 years, that’s essentially how they dealt with any student coming forward,” Hilary said. “They said it was young girls gossiping and his reputation needed to be protected.” An independent investigation later confirmed abuse by Rutledge and eight other teachers. The school’s all-female administration knew for decades.

The trauma response nobody talks about

People know fight, flight and freeze. Hilary’s survival response was fawning — appeasing the dangerous person so they don’t hurt you. She became the perfect student, the person with no needs, the protector of the man who was abusing her. And the response didn’t stop when the abuse did. It followed her into her career, her relationships, her marriage. “That type of trauma response is rewarded in society,” she said. “People don’t see a woman succeeding or going to the brink of breakdown and think, there must be something wrong. They just think, wow, she’s so strong.” When she finally went to therapy and told a therapist what happened, he told her that sometimes it was okay for adults to have relationships with children. Then he groomed and abused her too.

The phone call that changed everything

On the morning of March 29, 2024, Hilary received a 600-word text message from Rutledge. A student had come forward to the school. He assumed it was her. He admitted what he had done. He begged her not to speak. Then an email arrived from a Boston attorney representing Melissa Ferris — a survivor Hilary had never met who’d been five years behind her at Miss Hall. Hilary called Melissa that afternoon. “I told her I’d been waiting for her call for 20 years,” she said. They talked for an hour, shared identical stories of grooming and abuse, and realized they couldn’t be the only ones. Rutledge was arraigned this year on three felony counts of rape. When Hilary faced him in court, it was the first time the power had shifted. “We were there because we chose to be. He was there because he had to be.”

What she's fighting for now

Massachusetts is one of 10 states without an authority-figure exception to the age of consent. That means a teacher can claim a 16-year-old student consented. Hilary and Melissa have been working with lawmakers to pass a bill that would close that loophole. They testified before the state legislature. They went public in Vanity Fair. They pushed the school to overhaul its policies. “Systems don’t change unless survivors are visible,” Hilary said. She no longer feels alone. And that, she said, is everything.