A teacher at the elite New York school where Jeffrey Epstein once taught has resigned after being accused of sexually abusing a student over two years.
Mara Naaman, 50, resigned four days after the Dalton school received a letter written “on behalf of a former student” claiming he was abused by the English teacher between 2020 and 2022.
Parents at the $61,000-a-year private school were alerted three days later in an email from principal José De Jesús, warning them there could be other victims.
“We are only providing the professor’s name so that anyone with relevant information can provide that information,” he wrote.
“Our priority is to determine the veracity of these claims and determine if there are other allegations of abuse by other members of the community.”
Mother and former Fulbright scholar Mara Naaman, 50, quit her job as an English teacher at New York’s Dalton School four days after facing allegations of sexual abuse.
Principal José De Jesús told parents that the school was trying to establish the number of victims.
Naaman, a mother and former Fulbright scholar who described herself as a “writer, scholar, and humanist,” was a tenured associate professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Williams College in Massachusetts, where she spent seven years before joining Dalton in 2017.
At the school she taught English literature to students in grades nine through 12 and was named “house advisor,” responsible for “creating a safe space for conversations about personal responsibility,” according to the school’s website.
“House Advisors not only advise on academic issues, but are also a ‘sounding board’ for students on all matters, including social and emotional issues,” she explains.
“In addition, the House Advisor is the primary contact between Dalton and the student’s family.”
Alumni of the K-12 school include journalist Anderson Cooper, actresses Claire Danes and Tracee Ellis Ross, and actor Chevy Chase.
The school gained notoriety during the Jeffrey Epstein trial when it emerged that the billionaire pedophile had worked there as a physics and mathematics teacher in 1973, tutoring the son of former Bear Stearns chairman Alan ‘Ace’ Greenberg, among others.
He was also at the center of legal action against former principal Gardner Dunnan, who was accused in a 2018 lawsuit of sexually abusing a 14-year-old student he took in at his home in the 1980s.
Dunnan allowed the girl to be admitted to the school without going through a formal application process, the lawsuit states.
Because she could not pay tuition, the lawsuit claims the girl was allowed to live with Dunnan and his wife as long as she helped them with their newborn baby in their apartment near the school.
Naaman, a Columbia University graduate, was among dozens of Dalton employees who signed an “anti-racism manifesto” in 2020 demanding a curriculum overhaul before returning to classes after the pandemic.
The eight-page document called for hiring 12 diversity officers, donating half of all donations to New York public schools, and eliminating AP classes if black students’ scores don’t match those of blacks. white students.
School officials insisted the document was just a set of “idea starters” and said it already had a “commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism based on our deep appreciation for the dignity of all members.” of the community”.
The school has reported the latest allegations to police and has hired “an outside investigation firm, T&M USA LLC, an expert in the field of sexual misconduct to conduct an investigation.”
The $61,000-a-year school on the Upper East Side counts journalist Anderson Cooper, actresses Claire Danes and Tracee Ellis Ross, and actor Chevy Chase among its students.
The former Fulbright scholar, originally from Michigan, resigned from a tenure-track position as assistant professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Williams College in Massachusetts before joining Dalton in 2017.
“The school has clear policies and boundary guidelines for appropriate interactions with Dalton students,” De Jesus wrote.
‘Currently, at the time of hire, all employees are fingerprinted and we conduct a background check.
“They attend training on sexual harassment prevention and boundaries annually.”
Naaman’s sudden resignation has also alarmed some parents who relied on her for college recommendations for their children.
“It was a very big surprise,” a former Dalton father told the New York Post.
“Everyone has been talking about it, but no one really knows what happened.”