Tolerance Betrayed

Larry Lane Bateman's 1975 Ph.D. dissertation from Southern Illinois University included two plays: one titled Kiss the Sky and another called Lying in State. Both are about male high school teachers who seduce male students. The controversial content of those works might have made prospective employers leery of hiring Bateman to teach at a boarding school. Yet administrators at New Hampshire's Phillips Exeter Academy insist that they never bothered to read his dissertation. At least, not until life on campus began to imitate art.

Scandal first erupted in July, when police raided Bateman's campus apartment and netted 650 pornographic videos. So...