UNCSA has been exposed as a bastion of abuse. But real change is within reach.
by Joseph McNamara Hefner
Joseph is a North Carolinian writer, filmmaker, and stage director. he/him/his Twitter: @Joseph_Hefner_
Everything at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts is about maintaining a facade. It is one of the most respected conservatories in the world, a place where students learn how to craft breathtaking, fantastic spectacles. Its high school and college alumni in the spheres of dance, design, drama, filmmaking, and music have immeasurably influenced our popular culture for almost 60 years. I earned my BFA in filmmaking from UNCSA in 2015 and worked for the school as a temporary employee in 2013, 2014, and 2016.
For the most part, I loved my time there. But after almost two years of researching abusive practices in fine arts education, a very different image of the school has emerged for me and many others. And after decades of secrets and lies, an expertly crafted facade is finally crumbling.
Last year, a group of high school alumni represented by Gloria Allred and the Lanier Law Group filed a lawsuit against UNCSA, alleging rampant and often curricularized sexual, physical, and emotional abuse perpetrated by faculty. (An investigation by The Charlotte Observer and The Raleigh News & Observer discovered that the school's inquiry into faculty misconduct in the 1990s "hid the most damning discoveries.") After the initial filing, which only listed seven plaintiffs, none of whom had attended the school past the 1980s, the school's current chancellor and former dean of music, Brian Cole, stated, "UNCSA is not the same institution today that it was in the 1970s and 1980s," and that UNCSA had "implemented an infrastructure to protect its community against abuse of any kind." The full scope of the crisis soon turned out to be much, much worse.
When the November 2021 refiling of the lawsuit added 32 more alumni to the list of plaintiffs and included allegations that stretched into the 2010s, Cole announced that he would be "conducting listening sessions to understand existing concerns about safety and harassment at UNCSA." The following month, 17 more alumni joined the lawsuit, bringing the total number of plaintiffs to 56 and the total number of defendants, including defendant administrators accused of knowing about the abuse and failing to act, to 35. One of the accused faculty members worked at the school as recently as February 2021. Another has already been convicted of sex crimes in Michigan. Some of the individuals whose alleged abuses are described in the complaint are dead; most are still alive. Many are luminaries of their artistic disciplines. Four former chancellors are named as defendant administrators. The case, enabled by the passage of North Carolina's 2019 SAFE Child Act, which temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged abusers and complicit institutions, is ongoing.
Last February, another investigation by the Observer uncovered the existence of a second lawsuit, this one filed earlier in 2021 by two former graduate students. They allege that, as dean of UNCSA Music back in 2018, Brian Cole failed to act when alerted by the students that the director of the school’s opera program at the time had engaged in a pattern of sexual harassment against them, which included uninvited physical contact, inappropriate comments and adding rape fantasies to performances. The accused administrator was allowed to return to the campus during the Title IX investigation that ultimately established he had acted inappropriately, and he continued to be paid by the school far past when the administration insisted it had cut ties with him. That case is also ongoing.
It’s hard to say whether or not UNCSA still has “proud alumni.” It certainly has plenty of defenders, many of whom are still suffering from tragic delusions. In one alumni Facebook group, a dance alumnus went so far as to say, “Great teachers may abuse and it is absolutely worth it. I am only great today because of the ‘abuse’ I received and I am so incredibly grateful for it!!!! I want the best or nothing.” That is just one extreme view that can result from the psychological conditioning that is commonplace in elite, exclusive conservatories.
Almost all of us still have cherished memories of the school. But in far too many cases, we also experienced, witnessed, or at least regularly heard about faculty conduct that should never have been excused and definitely should not have been normalized. But it was. Again and again.
UNCSA now has an opportunity to lead by changing the landscape of fine arts education, instead of being just another conservatory populated by overworked students and run by overpaid dilettantes. That work will be painful, complex, and contradictory to the existing conservatory model. But it must begin, specifically with the removal of Brian Cole as chancellor. And it should continue with the school’s non complicit leaders, student body, influential alumni, and the state of North Carolina working together to chart a course for the future that will prioritize student safety over production calendars.
It’s time for the facade to be destroyed. The lives and careers of future students depend upon it.