Shore’s Latin motto, Vitai lampada tradunt – “they hand on the torch of life” – speaks to the passing of knowledge, values and integrity to the next generation. But not all beliefs are worthy of being passed on.
Clare Walker: “Speaking out came at great personal cost”.Credit: KATE GERAGHTY
During my time at Shore, I raised the alarm about a dangerous and outdated attitude toward domestic violence held by the school’s leadership – and was shunned for it.
Speaking out came at great personal cost. I was ignored, isolated and made to feel so unsafe and unsupported that I ultimately chose to resign. It threw me into financial and psychological instability. And yet I would do it again.
The attitudes promoted by the headmaster, John Collier, and echoed by others after the murder of Lilie James are not values any community should inherit. By excusing violence, reframing it and glorifying the perpetrator, the school failed both its female staff and the young men it seeks to educate. It sent the message that misconduct carries no consequences when cloaked in power. This failure is especially damning in a country such as Australia, where one woman is killed every week due to domestic violence.
The school’s silence spoke volumes: a woman’s safety was less important than preserving a male perpetrator’s reputation.
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As educators, we are entrusted with modelling the values we teach. We urge students not to be bystanders in the face of racism, bullying or injustice. Yet when authority figures remain silent, they model cowardice and complicity. Silence is not neutrality; it is permission. It allows injustice to fester.
The silence from the school’s executive, council, and most of my colleagues, who allowed this rhetoric to go unchallenged, was disturbing. This was not oversight – it was complicity. It was a textbook case of the bystander effect, where moral responsibility is abandoned in favour of collective apathy.
Those who did speak out – all women – were ignored or dismissed. Many of my male colleagues looked away, shrugged or resented being asked to take a stand. Friends became strangers.
