For nearly 50 years, Peter Devine has been a fixture of St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, running the drama program and teaching English at the well-known San Francisco Catholic high school.
He’s been honored by the school, and even received a shoutout at the Tony Awards by a former student.
But earlier this week, a lawsuit accused the popular teacher of kissing a freshman student in the school theater in 1996.
The student, who reported the incident for the first time in 2022, had come to speak with Devine about the drama program, according to the lawsuit. At the end of the meeting, the suit alleges the two hugged. Then, according to the lawsuit, Devine took things further, saying “We’re men, and men can kiss on the lips. isn’t that right?”
The student simply nodded, not knowing how to react, according to the suit.
“The perpetrator then aggressively kissed Plaintiff,” the lawsuit states. “Plaintiff was shocked and froze as the kiss continued. Perpetrator then said, ‘See, that’s okay, isn’t it?’”
“[The kiss] really sent my client into a tailspin that he’s been dealing with ever since,” said Tim Hale, the former student’s attorney.
Hale said his client has struggled with self-medication and self-harm since the alleged incident.
“It would have been a very different life path he would have gone down had this experience not taken place,” Hale said.
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Shortly after Hale’s client reported the incident, the school hired an outside law firm to conduct an investigation.
According to the firm’s report, Devine denied the allegation, but the investigation sustained the former student’s claim, finding him to be “credible” and stating that Devine “did not appear credible.”
“A preponderance of the evidence supports a finding that Peter Devine engaged in unwelcome sexual advances with Former Student number 1,” the report stated.
And that’s not the only incident investigated by the outside firm.
Sara Phillips-Ritchey is a former St. Ignatius staff member who helped prepare costumes for the theater department until she decided to leave the school earlier this year.
Phillips-Ritchey said in 2006 she witnessed something concerning backstage during a dress rehearsal for a school performance.
“I saw a student pinned up against the wall by Mr. Devine,” she said. “The student looked trapped. He looked very uncomfortable. Mr. Devine had one hand on either side of the student’s head.”
When Devine noticed her standing there, he stepped away from the student very quickly, Phillips-Ritchey said. Unsure at first what to do, she says she reported the incident to her supervisor several months later, who took her concerns to the school principal.
“That should have triggered a mandatory report, without a doubt,” Hale said.
But Phillips-Ritchey said she was never told what happened after her supervisor made the report.
“Nobody ever spoke to me,” she said. “Nobody ever asked me to describe what I saw. I was not interviewed. And to me, that was very, very concerning.”
The same outside investigator interviewed Phillips-Ritchey and her supervisor during their 2022 probe. According to the firm’s report, Phillips-Ritchey’s supervisor told the investigator that “soon after he reported it, the former Principal told him that he reached an ‘agreement’ with Devine in which he was not allowed to go backstage at the Bannan Theater."
According to the investigation, a school handbook showed that Devine went on sabbatical the following year.
Devine denied the allegation, according to the report, but the investigator found Phillips-Ritchey and her supervisor to be credible.
“Witness number 1 and number 2’s account of the 2006 incident is more credible than Devine’s denial that the incident never occurred,” the report stated.
NBC Bay Area called and emailed Devine to get his side of the story, but never got a response. According to the lawsuit and Devine’s LinkedIn page, he continued to teach at the school until last year.
NBC Bay Area sent St. Ignatius a list of questions, including whether they reported either the former student’s or Phillips-Ritchey’s allegations to San Francisco police. Police would not say whether they receive any reports from the school.
In a statement, the school said: “We haven’t reviewed the suit yet and do not comment on pending litigation.”
The outside investigator also looked into a third report involving Devine.
“Another former SI Teacher said that in September 2020, she received a text or saw a post from a former female SI student who said that ‘three different alums’ from ‘different years of graduation’ had alleged that Devine had assaulted them,” the report stated.
According to the report, the former teacher reported the text to a current SI teacher, “who advised her to let the alumni come forward on their own and discouraged the former teacher from taking the matter further.”
The investigation found the former teacher to be “credible” but stated “she appeared to be holding back the name of the student who reported the misconduct.” According to the report, the investigator was never able to speak directly with the student.
“My abiding concern is that there is no culture at the school where duty of care and safeguarding is adequately pursued,” Phillips-Ritchey said.
