This summer, Hyde Boarding School in Bath, Maine was hit with a federal class-action lawsuit, one that echoes what many of us have known for years.

The suit, Fuller v. Hyde School, alleges forced child labor, emotional abuse, and coercive practices masked as “character development.” Since its filing, dozens of alumni have come forward with similar stories. I’m one of them.

I attended Hyde School’s Woodstock, Connecticut campus for three and a half years. While parts of the experience, particularly family therapy, brought growth, one aspect of Hyde’s culture never left me: the brutal enforcement of “Brother’s Keeper.”

On the surface, Brother’s Keeper sounds like integrity, students holding each other accountable. But in practice, it created a hierarchy of informants and interrogators. The system rewarded betrayal, punished privacy, and manufactured fear.

Here’s how it worked: one student breaks a rule. Another reports them. Then the Dean’s Area begins its sweep. Students are pulled into rooms and pressured to confess, name names, expose anyone else who might be “dirty.”

This wasn’t accountability. It was emotional warfare.

Sometimes it ended in full “school busts,” ritualistic spectacles where students were called on stage and forced to confess humiliating details, often about sex or drugs, in front of the entire school body. Later, the Dean would probe deeper in private, asking graphic, invasive questions under the guise of “support.”

If your name came up, your parents were called immediately. You were labeled untrustworthy. Not ready. A failure. And if you didn’t “come clean” fast enough, you were manipulated into believing you were hiding something. That you were sick. That you weren’t safe to be let out into the world.

Some students were held back a year, despite passing grades and completed credits, because Hyde didn’t believe they were “ready.” Anywhere else, they would have graduated. At Hyde, they lost a year of their lives, and their families lost another year of tuition, all because they broke a rule and failed to confess soon enough.

At Hyde, you weren’t measured by your growth, your grades, or your honesty over time. You were measured by your submission.

If you protected a friend, you were dishonest. If you kept something private, you were manipulative. If you didn’t collapse and rebuild yourself publicly, you weren’t ready.

The culture didn’t just fracture friendships. It severed our sense of self. It taught us that loyalty to the institution mattered more than loyalty to ourselves. That humiliation was a necessary step toward redemption. That our mistakes were more defining than our progress.

I remember gripping my seat during a senior-year bust while a girl on stage sobbed through a confession that never should have been public. I stared at the floor, praying I wouldn’t be next.

I was terrified. Afraid of what my family would think. That everything I had done to change, to earn back their trust, would be erased. I was terrified they’d believe Hyde over me. That they’d see me as a failure again. That they wouldn’t let me come back home.

What Hyde called “character” was just control.

Hyde didn’t break me. If anything, it made me tougher, but at a cost. I didn’t leave feeling weak or insecure. I left guarded. Wary. I learned to flinch before trusting, to scan for danger before connection. I see the bad in people before I see the good. And it takes time, sometimes too long, to believe someone is safe. To believe that I am.

Since I started speaking out, I’ve heard from dozens of alumni with similar stories, many just beginning to untangle what happened to them.

I’ve spent the last decade writing a novel about my experiences at Hyde, titled The Pace of Nature. It’s currently in submission for publication. The story explores how I ended up at Hyde, what happened there, and the long road to reclaiming my identity. Starting this month, I’ll be sharing updates as the journey unfolds.

To Hyde, I say this: the world doesn’t need more control dressed as character. It needs healing. Accountability. And the kind of strength that doesn’t rely on fear.