Arts School Settles Sexual Abuse Lawsuit for $12.5 Million

The prestigious University of North Carolina School of the Arts announced on Friday that it had settled a lawsuit brought by dozens of alumni who described widespread sexual and emotional abuse that they said took place on and off campus, and that spanned decades.

Lawyers said the 65 former students who brought the claims will be paid a total of $12.5 million over four years, according to a statement released by the arts school. 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 early teens, so many of them went to this school with the potential to do world-class things, whether it was the violin, or to dance or to sing,” Bobby Jenkins, a lawyer for the claimants, said in an interview on Friday. “In many cases, that potential was derailed by what happened to them.”

Former students described a stunning array of abuse at the school in their 236-page complaint, which was initially filed in late 2021. In the court papers, they said that, beginning in the late 1960s, dozens of teachers and administrators — including some of the most respected figures in the dance and performing arts world — participated in, or allowed, their sexual, physical and emotional abuse, conditions that persisted for the next 40 years.

The abuse included assaults in classrooms, private homes off campus, a motel room off a highway, and a tour bus rumbling through Italy, according to the lawsuit. The court papers described student complaints of being raped, groped and fondled through their leotards. At alcohol-fueled dance parties, the lawsuit said, students as young as 14 were told to completely disrobe and perform ballet moves.

Chris Alloways-Ramsey, 56, who attended the school from 1984 to 1986 and was one of the claimants, described a swirl of mixed emotions in an interview on Friday. He said he felt relief that the ordeal had ended and gratitude toward the lawyers who had worked tirelessly to defend him and others.