‘I am broken’: UNC School of Arts alumni describe decades-long suffering from sexual abuse

Some University of North Carolina School of the Arts alumni spoke publicly for the first time Monday about the abuse they say they endured on campus.

Four plaintiffs in a recent lawsuit joined attorneys on Zoom to describe their struggles, with a fifth appeared speaking via a prerecorded video. Now in their 50s, some displayed pictures of themselves as teenagers dressed in dance clothes or grinning at the camera.

“I began to rationalize that the young man in these pictures had somehow seduced an authority figure and a teacher in the school,” said one plaintiff who alleges a ballet teacher raped him as a teenager. “I am broken, and I have been for decades.”

The abuse occurred in the 1980s, he stressed, while AIDS was striking down many young, gay men across the country.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Forsyth County, accuses UNCSA of failing to stop teachers from sexually preying on students at the arts conservatory, which admits both high-school and university students.

Each of the seven plaintiffs was a minor enrolled in the high school dance program in the 1980s. The Charlotte Observer and News & Observer generally don’t publish the names of childhood sexual abuse survivors.

One after another they described longterm effects of alleged abuse from instructors who had great control over their artistic dreams.

A litany of pain

The abuse “made me feel like less of a person than anyone else,” one plaintiff said.

“I began to experience dread as an everyday normal” at UNCSA, said another.

“No child should suffer under this weight,” one said. The trauma had led him to attemp suicide twice, he said.

Their lawyers, led by nationally known sex abuse litigator Gloria Allred and North Carolina attorney Lisa Lanier, praised the seven for coming forward.

Repeatedly they asked any other former student who experienced abuse on campus to contact them. They want to hear from witnesses too.

The lawyers have asked that the courts certify their case as a class action lawsuit, allowing other alumni who suffered at the school to join. They hope that certification, which could take months, will allow people of any age to sign on.

But the two-year window that temporarily nullifies age limits in North Carolina child sex abuse cases ends in December, so the lawyers urged potential clients to contact them quickly. After the window, state law requires that child sex abuse survivors who want to sue do so by age 28.

The statute of limitations, which was even shorter before state legislators passed the SAFE Child Act in 2019, led courts to dismiss a 1995 lawsuit that one of the current plaintiffs filed against the school.

Chancellor responds

Brian Cole, installed as School of the Arts chancellor just last Friday, responded to the allegations Monday in an email.

“We are horrified by the allegations of sexual abuse and are appalled by the concept that sexual abuse could happen under the guise of artistic training,” Cole wrote to the “UNCSA Community”.

“The allegations in the complaint are deeply disturbing and run counter to UNCSA’s institutional values,” Cole wrote. “While they have been raised in the context of a lawsuit against UNCSA, it is our intent to respond to this litigation in a manner consistent with our institutional values.”

That means listening to the accounts “with openness; to appreciate the courage it took for our former students and alumni to share their experiences, especially given the long-term impacts of trauma many have described; and to take steps to acknowledge and address any historical misconduct with candor and compassion,” he added.

The two teachers accused in the 1995 lawsuit resigned before the school could fire them, but it prompted the Board of Governors to commission an investigation into sex abuse at the school and offer suggestions for policy reforms. UNCSA adopted them, and now forbids any non platonic relationships between staff and students.

But an investigation by The Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer showed that the inquiry’s public report didn’t match internal documents.

Twenty-four staff had been accused of sexually harassing students or having relationships with them, and half of them were still teaching at the school in 1995, according to one list. But the commission said that “most of the few alleged wrongdoers” had already departed.

Some on the commission’s list, which was not released to the public, teach there today. None of the five accused staff who spoke to The Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer had been notified, they said.

Of those still at the school, Vice Chancellor for Institutional Integrity David Harrison said there are no records to indicate they were questioned or disciplined due to the investigation. Cole said in the Monday letter that, due to the sparse records on both the commission’s work and the school’s response, they don’t know enough about the investigation to comment on it.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include UNC School of the Arts Chancellor Brian Cole’s written response to the plaintiffs’ allegations.

This story was originally published October 4, 2021 at 5:03 PM.