Fox

The private schools where Fox teaches are elite spaces where parents send their children, at great expense, on the expectation that they will be better cared for than they would be at a public school. Ironically, Fox uses precisely this expectation of safety to hide his predatory behavior. The novel points out how often and easily someone might manipulate institutions whose continued viability depends on reputation. Because these schools can only survive if wealthy parents view them as safe, Fox is easily able to convince school leadership to help him erase the evidence of his crimes. Similar stories have repeatedly played out in the real world as institutions have prioritized their reputations over the safety of their communities. 

Most famously, a series of scandals unfolded within the Roman Catholic Church in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as allegations of sexual abuse emerged against priests and other leadership figures within the Church. In several cases, Church leaders were found to have shuffled abusers from one diocese to another without removing them from their roles or allowing the accusations against them to come to light, exactly as happens with Fox’s teaching career in Oates’s novel. As just one example, the Chilean priest Fernando Karadima was removed from the clergy in 2010 for sexual abuse of minors, but credible accusations had been made against him as far back as 1984.