Public Radio for the Piedmont and High Country
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Former students allege widespread abuse at UNCSA from past decades

WFDD FILE

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts faces a lawsuit by former students who say they were victims of sexual abuse. The Winston-Salem Journal reports that most of the plaintiffs were students at the school in the 1980s. 

The complaint alleges that they were inappropriately touched or were groomed for sexual relations by their instructors and that nothing was done when they reported the actions to administrators.

The filing represents only the plaintiffs' side of the case.

The defendants in the lawsuit, in addition to the university, are a group of faculty and administrators. The Journal reports that most of them have died or retired in the decades since the acts are alleged to have occurred. Neither a university spokeswoman nor living defendants commented when reached by the newspaper.

In 2019 North Carolina passed the SAFE Child Act, which opened a two-year window for new lawsuits for child abuse victims who had previously been barred by the statute of limitations.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

Support quality journalism, like the story above,
with your gift right now.

Donate