Leaders at the University of North Carolina are refusing to release details about why the state agreed to pay millions to former students over allegations of decades-long sexual abuse by faculty at the state’s most prestigious arts campus.
Actions by state lawmakers last year ensured this will never be necessary again.
In May, the UNC System and the UNC School of the Arts agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by dozens of alumni, accusing administrators of “deliberately turning a blind eye” to teachers who taught students from the 1960s to abused and exploited the 2010s. The institutions will pay $12.5 million over the next four years to settle with approximately 65 former students.
“Resolving the disputes under the terms specific here will avoid protracted litigation and achieve a balanced resolution that honors the plaintiffs and, in some cases, their memory,” said the agreement, obtained by The News & Observer through a public records request.
What neither the university system nor the school reveal, however, is why they came to this conclusion.
Under state law, the attorney general’s office must review any proposed settlement of more than $75,000 and detail why such an amount would be justified. The analyzes can provide important insights into how the state thinks things would turn out if a case were to go to civil court – and which facts and arguments would be most persuasive to a jury.
Take, for example, the 2015 memo justifying a $2.5 million settlement for the family of an inmate who died of thirst after weeks in solitary confinement in a western North Carolina prison. The document revealed that the state’s attorneys believed the “repeated, widespread and incendiary failures of various prison staff members” made lawsuits a “worst-case scenario,” WRAL News reported.
Nazneen Ahmed, spokesperson for Attorney General Josh Stein, acknowledged that such a memo exists for the UNCSA settlement. But her office can’t share that data because it is protected by attorney-client privilege, she said.
North Carolina’s public records law exempts communications between public agencies and their attorneys, but makes clear that those agencies can make such correspondence public.
Both the UNC System and the UNC School of the Arts declined to release the attorney general’s memo after The News & Observer requested the records late last month.
“As is standard practice among government agencies in North Carolina, the University System does not release documents from the Attorney General’s Office that contain privileged information or legal advice to the University,” UNC System spokesman Andy Wallace said in an email .
Lawmakers opt for more secrecy
Until last year, however, attorney-client privilege did not last forever.
For decades, the Public Records Act has allowed attorneys to communicate with public agencies after three years.
But hidden in last year’s 400-page budget, state lawmakers included language that quietly repealed that three-year limit. That means if agencies want to maintain classified data that would justify spending millions of public money, they can.
The News & Observer’s recently launched investigative series Power & Secrecy documents how lawmakers are increasingly pushing major policy changes into the state budget without much, if any, public debate.
The change in attorney-client privilege was largely overlooked amid the Legislature’s move to effectively exempt itself from the state’s public records law, says Kym Meyer, former N.C. chairman Open Government Coalition and Litigation Director for the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The attorney-client privilege serves a purpose: lawyers can provide candid advice and strategy. But once that process is over, Meyer says, the public should ultimately have the opportunity to see how governments and their lawyers acted in their best interests.
Such transparency is especially valuable for formal memos written by the state’s top lawyers, she said.
“A memo like this – this isn’t some small email communication between an attorney and a client as they try to negotiate details,” Meyer said.
Multimillion-dollar settlements with the state are not that uncommon, according to the N.C. Department of Justice’s latest report to lawmakers.
From September through March 2024, the Attorney General’s Office was involved in more than 200 settlements paid by various state government agencies. The majority of these settlements — about 80% — consisted of payouts to property owners for land seized for road construction and other N.C. Department of Transportation projects, the DOJ report shows.
Agencies also paid more than $34.3 million during that six-month period to settle more than 40 claims involving state worker injuries, accidents and other disputes. This figure does not include the UNC settlement over sexual abuse claims.
Each of these cases requires, under state law, a formal legal opinion to which the public is no longer entitled. Ever.
But Meyer said she’s more concerned about another aspect of the change. Making communications between lawyers and clients public, even after a three-year waiting period, is a safeguard to ensure that the government and its lawyers are acting on behalf of the public, she said. Greater secrecy could open the door to inappropriate or unethical behavior – for example, situations in which government agencies act to protect themselves rather than the people.
“If you know there will be scrutiny, you will be honest,” Meyer said. “If you can assume that no one will watch your conversations, who knows what kind of behavior you will exhibit?”
Allegations of decades of abuse
UNCSA opened in 1965 as the nation’s first public art conservatory, housing both high school and college students on a 75-acre campus in Winston-Salem. While students and others complained of abuse over the years, the school did little to protect dance, drama and music students from teachers who had a major influence on their access to education and long-term careers.
Seven dance alumni first filed the lawsuit in 2021. Over time, more and more alumni came forward to complain about teachers groping students, trying to have sex with them, and other forms of sexual abuse from the 1960s until the 2010s. Several alumni claimed they were raped by teachers or older students.
“Despite the clear obligation to the boys and girls who chose to attend the school, the defendant administrators have instead permitted, participated in, encouraged, permitted, perpetuated and/or tolerated a culture of sexual abuse and exploitation,” the lawsuit said.
In a 1995 lawsuit, two teachers were accused of sexually assaulting students, resulting in the creation of a special committee established by the UNC Board of Governors. The committee denied a widespread pattern of inappropriate misconduct but banned all relationships between teachers and students.
The commission’s findings incorrectly indicated that most of the alleged perpetrators had left the school, a 2021 News & Observer and Charlotte Observer investigation found. Through interviews with former members of the school community and unpublished documents, reporters revealed that 24 staff members were accused of harassing or having relationships with students.
A judge dismissed the 1995 lawsuit because the plaintiff was over 21, exceeding the state’s statute for child abuse lawsuits. A change in the law in 2019 suspended these restrictions for two years, allowing alumni to file child abuse lawsuits from January 2020 to December 2021.
After the settlement was finalized in May, UNC System President Peter Hans praised school leadership for “facing this difficult chapter with compassion and integrity.”
UNCSA Chancellor Brian Cole called it a “dark time” for the institution and said he was “personally devastated” that anyone on campus would be abused — and vowed to increase trust and safety at the school.
“While this resolution cannot heal the wounds of the past, I deeply hope that the survivors who have come forward feel our commitment to listen, acknowledge and do what is right,” Cole said.
However, neither the school nor the UNC System admits anything went wrong in the settlement agreement.
Defendants in the lawsuit “disagree with the allegations and statements” and “deny the claims asserted against them,” according to the agreement.
NC Reality Check is an N&O series that holds those in power accountable and shines a light on public issues impacting the Triangle or North Carolina. Do you have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@newsobserver.com.
