Art school settles sexual abuse lawsuit for $12.5 million

The University of North Carolina’s prestigious School of the Arts announced Friday that it has settled a lawsuit filed by dozens of alumni who reported widespread sexual and emotional abuse that they said took place on and off campus spanned decades.

According to a statement released by the art school, lawyers said the 65 former students who made the claims will be paid a total of $12.5 million over four years. The University of North Carolina System will pay $10 million and the school itself will pay $2.5 million, the statement said.

“When they were children and young teenagers, so many of them went to this school with the potential to do world-class things, whether it was violin, dancing or singing,” said Bobby Jenkins, a Plaintiffs’ attorney said in an interview Friday. “In many cases, that potential has been dashed by what happened to them.”

Former students described a stunning array of abuses at the school in their 236-page complaint, originally filed in late 2021. The court papers said that since the late 1960s, dozens of teachers and administrators – including some of the dance and performing arts worlds’ most respected figures – participated in or permitted their sexual, physical and emotional abuse, conditions that lasted for the next 40 years.

According to the lawsuit, the abuse included attacks in classrooms, private homes off campus, a highway motel room and a tour bus rumbling through Italy. Court documents described complaints from students that they were raped, groped and fondled through their jerseys. At drunken dance parties, the lawsuit says, students as young as 14 were instructed to undress completely and perform ballet moves.

Chris Alloways-Ramsey, 56, who attended the school from 1984 to 1986 and was one of the plaintiffs, described a whirlwind of mixed emotions in an interview Friday. He said he was relieved the ordeal was over and was grateful to the lawyers who worked tirelessly to defend him and others.

But Mr. Alloways-Ramsey, who is now the Orlando Ballet’s director of education, also said he felt renewed anger at the school, which he said “got off very lightly.” The amount of the settlement payment was significantly less than the plaintiffs had demanded, he said.

“It’s hard to figure out why I’m so confused right now,” he said. “I am of course grateful for what we have. I am grateful that the school recognizes this.”

School of the Arts Chancellor Brian Cole said in a statement that it had been a dark time for the school as it dealt with reports of sexual abuse.

“I am personally devastated that anyone on this campus has experienced abuse,” he said, “and am committed to doing everything we can to continually strengthen an environment of safety and trust.”

When the school opened in the 1960s as the North Carolina School of the Arts in a quiet neighborhood just outside downtown Winston-Salem, it was the first public art conservatory in the country. According to court documents, the school, which operates as a boarding school and college, recruited students as young as 12 to study ballet, modern dance, music and other disciplines. It became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972.

Some of the allegations of abuse emerged publicly in a 1995 lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired. At that time, the UNC Board of Governors formed an independent commission to examine the allegations. When the new lawsuit was filed against the school in 2021, Chancellor Cole wrote in a letter to the campus community that a report from that commission found “no widespread sexual misconduct.”

The new lawsuit was filed under a North Carolina retroactivity law that allowed adults who said they were victims of child sexual abuse to sue individuals and institutions that held them responsible, even if their claims were time-barred had expired.

The law faces legal challenges, and Lisa Lanier, another lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the uncertainty made the settlement a particularly satisfying outcome for her clients. Similar cases filed by her company were held up in court. The lawyers, Ms. Lanier said, would soon work with a professional administrator to divide the funds among the victims.

Ms. Lanier and Mr. Jenkins praised the courage of the former students who came forward to report the abuse. And they also praised the university for taking responsibility for what happened and trying to make amends.

But Mr. Alloways-Ramsey was more cautious. “No matter what the amount is,” he said, “it won’t change what happened.”