Voice of Courage 2002
Posted Courtesy of The Post and Courier (http://www.charleston.net)
BY TONY BARTELME
Of The Post and Courier Staff
Young Man Changes Many Lives With Anguished Decision
Revelation of sexual abuse by teacher opened door for others to tell their stories
Years ago, when it was still a secret, Guerry Glover imagined that he was in the ocean, battling to keep a big ball under water. The ball kept rising to the surface, and he kept pushing it back under.
The beach ball was the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Eddie Fischer, one of his teachers at Porter-Gaud School. It began when he was 10 and lasted well into his teens.
The secret's pull was strong, and Glover tried to numb the shame and guilt with drugs and alcohol.
In 1997, more than 20 years after Fischer first touched him in the bedroom of his parent's house, Glover told his secret to the police. He let go of the beach ball, hoping the waves would carry it over the horizon.
Glover's decision set in motion a chain of events that shook the community, leaders of the anti-child abuse group From Darkness To Light said Monday as they gave Glover their "Voice of Courage" award.
"Many adult survivors who have never spoken of their childhood victimization have found the courage to speak because of this person's stamina and courage," Anne Lee, the group's executive director, said during the group's annual conference at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center.
Glover's story led to Fischer's arrest on Oct. 7, 1997, and it prompted 12 other victims to press criminal charges, some of whom had been molested as far back as the late 1950s. It stopped one James Island teen-ager from suffering further abuse; Fisher had molested him that summer. Fischer is serving 20 years in prison and has admitted in a sworn deposition that he sexually abused more than 40 boys during his four-decade teaching career in Charleston's public and private schools.
Glover's decision inspired victims to press charges against at least two other sexual offenders, said Debbie Herring-Lash, a prosecutor with the 9th Circuit Solicitor's Office. Because of his story, lawmakers strengthened notification provisions to make it easier to press charges against child-care providers and schools that ignore abuse. Community leaders formed a task force to help schools and other institutions better handle victims' complaints.
"What Guerry started is an enormous conversation in many people's lives of something they had never told anyone," said Gregg Meyers, Glover's lawyer, who presented the From Darkness to Light award. "What was not safe to talk about became safe to talk about."
Glover's story also ignited a bonfire of litigation. Victims and their parents, led by Glover and his father, sued Porter-Gaud, claiming that school officials knew Fischer was a danger to children but helped him get jobs at other schools anyway. A jury found the school grossly negligent and awarded Glover's father $105 million in actual and punitive damages. According to legal experts, it was the largest verdict ever involving a sexual abuse case and a school.
Other victims sued Porter-Gaud, forcing the school's insurance company to pay more than $25 million to settle Glover's and 18 other cases. Another victim recently sued the Catholic Diocese of Charleston, claiming church officials should have known Fischer was harming students while a teacher in Charleston's Catholic schools.
"For the next 10 years, I'd say, people won't forget the lesson from the Porter-Gaud case that children need to be protected," Meyers said. "That is no small feat, and it is entirely the doing of Guerry Glover."
Glover winces a little when he receives these and other compliments. "Very surreal," he said. He never imagined that he would someday talk about the most private details of his life in the newspaper and on television and that something positive would come of it. "The thing I feel best about is that people saw it could have a good ending, and when it comes to sexual abuse, that's very rare."
Five years ago, when he went to police, he wasn't sure what would happen. Would his family and friends still talk to him? Would Fischer and Porter-Gaud use their influence and lawyers to destroy him?
"When Guerry came forward," said Herring-Lash, who prosecuted the criminal charges against Fischer, "he had no idea whether the community would support him, or if he would be the target of negative character assassination. He was incredibly brave."
Glover worried about how his family would handle it, especially his father, a soft-spoken tomato farmer on Johns Island who died shortly after the jury returned its record $105 million verdict. Telling his dad, in fact, would be one of the most difficult chapters in the entire ordeal. He spent three weeks trying to summon the courage and finally told him one morning as they rode by one of his father's cucumber fields. When he finished, his father's response was simple: I'll help you any way I can, he said.
After Glover pressed charges against Fischer, other victims, many of whom had never told anyone about their abuse, began their own journeys.
"At first I thought Fischer's arrest would unleash this one big explosion," Glover said. "Instead there have been all these little explosions as people talked to their spouses and friends about what happened to them."
Shaw Simpson, who was molested by Fischer while Fischer was teaching at James Island High School, said he was spiraling toward suicide when he heard about Fischer's arrest. He eventually pressed criminal charges against Fischer and sued Porter-Gaud. "Without Guerry Glover, I would not be alive today," Simpson said.
Friends and former classmates rallied to Glover's cause.
Over time, as his story became more public, friends, even strangers, approached him with their tales of abuse.
"Hundreds of people have told me their stories," he said. "It gets to be draining, and it's hard because a lot of people now know a lot of very personal stuff about me. But the stakes are so high. A lot of (Fischer's victims) thought they were the only ones who were being molested. Now they're seeing how all the puzzle pieces fit together. The danger is when you contain your secret struggle. The walls get so high, and you forget that you're not alone."
About 10,000 children in the greater Charleston area will be abused this year, said Lee of From Darkness to Light during Monday's conference.
She said Glover's decision to tell his story energized her group, the Lowcountry Children's Center, and others that deal with the horrors of child abuse. "He forever changed the element of safety of our community's children," she said.
So, when Glover stepped onto the stage and into the spotlight, the 400 people in the darkened auditorium rose to their feet and applauded. "There are a lot of little children out there hurting," he said. "But never doubt that a small group of people can change the world."
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