May 10, 2012 5:55pm
A ‘Pack of Dogs’ Who Targeted ‘Different’ Boy
Mitt Romney's 1965 high school yearbook photo from the Cranbrook School. Image Credit: Seth Poppel/Yearbook Library
“It’s a haunting memory. I think it was for everybody that spoke up about it … because when you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it. And that was what we all walked away with,” said Phillip Maxwell, who is now an attorney and still considers Romney an old friend.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” said Maxwell, of the anecdote first reported by the Washington Post. Maxwell said Romney held the scissors helping to cut the hair of a student, John Lauber, who was presumed to be gay and who had long hair. “It was a hack job … clumps of hair taken off.”
Maxwell said he held the boy’s arm and leg, describing he and his friends as a “pack of dogs.”
Asked if Lauber was targeted because he was gay, as reported by the Post, Maxwell said, “We didn’t know that word in those days … but there were other words that were used. We weren’t ignorant, we just didn’t use the current names for things.”
Christine Lauber, older sister of John Lauber, who died in 2004, told ABC News she had ”no knowledge” of the incident involving her brother and Romney. But she said she was at college at the time of the incident, so at the time the brother and sister were “doing our own thing.”
“Even if it did happen, John probably wouldn’t have said anything,” she said.
“If he were still alive today, he would be furious [about the story],” she added with tears in her eyes. ”It’s two 16-year-old kids at school. And it was 40 years ago!”
Romney has since apologized for what he said were “pranks” in high school but has said he doesn’t remember this specific event. He added that “homosexuality was the furthest thing from his mind” when it came to the jokes he played on classmates. He laughed off the 45-year-old anecdotes during the radio interview today.
Asked if he has any doubt that what Romney did could be considered bullying, Maxwell responded, “Oh my god, are you kidding? … I castigated myself regularly for not having intervened. I would have felt a lot better about myself had I said, ‘Hey, enough.’”
“When I saw the look on his [Lauber's] face, it was a look I’ll never forget,” said Maxwell.
“When you see a victim, the sense of trust betrayed in this boy who was perfectly innocent for being different.”
“This was bullying supreme,” he said.
Maxwell told ABC News that he is a registered independent, generally votes for Democrats, but has voted Republican in the past. He said he would have voted for Romney’s father, George Romney, had he won the presidential nomination. He says he has not donated to President Obama, nor has he volunteered for him.
Maxwell said he believes the incident had to have some effect on Romney.
“I grew up with him. We were best friends in elementary school. We always remained friends. Mitt is wonderful, very bright, an enormously energetic human being … a friend all my life, but this was a side of him that I hadn’t seen,” said Maxwell.
Maxwell added that he believes this is relevant in a presidential campaign because it speaks to the “character” of Romney.
In response to the Post story, the Romney campaign today released statements of two other students who attended Cranbrook with Romney.
“Mitt was a thoughtful guy with a great sense of humor who cared about his classmates. He had a good perspective on how to balance all the pressures high school students face. He would never go out and do anything mean spirited. Clownish, yes. Never mean,” said Richard Moon, a classmate of Romney’s.
“Mitt never had a malicious bone in his body – trying to imply or characterize him as a bully is absurd.” said John French, another Cranbrook classmate.
ABC News’ Matt Jaffe contributed to this report.
May 10, 2012 6:42pm
Inside Romney’s Elite Prep School
Cranbrook School, an
elite all-boys preparatory school in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., is where
Mitt Romney spent some of his formative years. Today, Romney’s time at
Cranbrook became a focus of the presidential campaign after a Washington Post piece alleged that that some of the pranks he pulled there targeted a gay peer.
Romney entered Cranbrook in 1959 when he was 12 years old and beginning the seventh grade. He would graduate in 1965 at the age of 18. When he was there he met his future wife, Ann Davies, who was a sophomore at Cranbrook’s sister school, Kingswood, when he was a senior.
Cranbrook has since become a coed institution and no longer requires students to wear coats and ties. Its reputation for privilege and academic rigor remain.
The school said that while it would certainly be proud to have one of its alumni elected president, as a matter of policy it “will not endorse any political ideology, party, or candidate.”
The school said there is no longer anyone at Cranbrook who “was affiliated with the school when Romney was a student,” making it impossible for anyone at the school to offer “personal observations, anecdotes, or stories” about him.
Today, the K-12 school costs between $18,900 and $38,900 to attend, depending on grade level and whether a student is boarding. The school, which has an enrollment of 1,656 and sits on 319 acres of land, including 40 acres of scenic gardens and forests.
The school’s serene setting is on full display in a YouTube video from 2010. Its facilities, which include an ice arena and a natatorium, can be seen in a virtual tour on the school’s website.
Romney entered Cranbrook in 1959 when he was 12 years old and beginning the seventh grade. He would graduate in 1965 at the age of 18. When he was there he met his future wife, Ann Davies, who was a sophomore at Cranbrook’s sister school, Kingswood, when he was a senior.
Cranbrook has since become a coed institution and no longer requires students to wear coats and ties. Its reputation for privilege and academic rigor remain.
The school said that while it would certainly be proud to have one of its alumni elected president, as a matter of policy it “will not endorse any political ideology, party, or candidate.”
The school said there is no longer anyone at Cranbrook who “was affiliated with the school when Romney was a student,” making it impossible for anyone at the school to offer “personal observations, anecdotes, or stories” about him.
Today, the K-12 school costs between $18,900 and $38,900 to attend, depending on grade level and whether a student is boarding. The school, which has an enrollment of 1,656 and sits on 319 acres of land, including 40 acres of scenic gardens and forests.
The school’s serene setting is on full display in a YouTube video from 2010. Its facilities, which include an ice arena and a natatorium, can be seen in a virtual tour on the school’s website.
Romney: 'I don't recall' alleged bullying incident
OMAHA, Neb. – For the second time Thursday, Mitt Romney took to friendly airwaves to defend himself against reports of high school bullying and apologize if anything he did during his high school days hurt anyone.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto this afternoon, Romney said he did not recall the specific incident described in a now-viral Washington Post story which described Romney leading a group of students in forcefully holding down and cutting a fellow student's hair, who, the story claimed, they perceived to be gay.
"First of all, I had no idea what that individual's sexual orientation might be. Going back to the 1960s, that wasn't something that we all discussed or considered. That's simply just not accurate," Romney said. "I don't recall the incident myself, but I've seen the reports. Not going to argue with that. There's no question that I did some stupid things when I was in high school and obviously if I hurt anyone by virtue of that I would be very sorry for it and apologize for it."
Early this morning, in an interview added to the candidate's public schedule at the last moment, Romney told Fox News Radio's Brian Kilmeade he was sorry for "dumb things" he did as a young man, if they hurt anyone.
Romney apologizes for dumb things during school years
The story overshadowed the Romney campaign's planned message for the second day in a row, after President Obama's statements on same-sex marriage did so Wednesday.
After his brief remarks at a campaign stop here in Nebraska, Secret Service agents, at the direction of the campaign, kept members of Romney's traveling press corps well out of range for shouted questions, ushering him inside for local news interviewers – several of whom asked about the bullying story.
This afternoon the Romney campaign released statements from two of the former Massachusetts Governor's high school classmates pushing back on the idea that Romney, who has long described himself as a prankster as a young man, was a bully.
"Mitt was a thoughtful guy with a great sense of humor who cared about his classmates,” read one statement by Richard Moon, who attended high school with Romney. “He had a good perspective on how to balance all the pressures high school students face. He would never go out and do anything mean spirited. Clownish, yes. Never mean."
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