Lawsuit: AISD theater director accused of sexual harassment, assault and verbal abuse

Five former Austin school district students accused the Bowie High School theater director of sexual harassment, assault and other “inappropriate and illegal behavior" in a lawsuit filed Friday against her and the district.

Diane Elizabeth “Betsy” Cornwell has been a theater director for more than 30 years at Bowie, and the plaintiffs — Walden Hagelman, Sarah Andrews, Andie Haddad, Dana Havlin and Erika De Los Santos — all attended the school and were involved in the theater program between 2008 and 2014. 

In the suit, the five female alumni said Cornwell engaged in inappropriate touching, harmful and abusive language, assault, battery, emotional and psychological abuse, and manipulation while they were in high school. She also allowed sexual assaults to happen under her direction and provided drugs to at least one student, according to the suit. 

The Austin school board voted in January to name the performing arts center at Bowie after Cornwell. A tweet in August from the Bowie account said that Cornwell had given “so much to students for so many years” and the school was “so happy to honor” Cornwell with the naming.

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The alumni claim in the suit that the district was ignoring the abuse they suffered by naming the center after Cornwell and “praising and commending their assaulter.” The praise prompted the alumni “to revisit their damaging experiences as children at the hands of Defendant Cornwell” and “recognize as adults the extent of abuse they suffered,” the suit says.

“Only then did plaintiffs reconnect and realize that their individualized experiences were part of a broader failure on the part of AISD to recognize and remedy dangerous conditions within JBHS, and instead allow Defendant Cornwell to have complete control over (Starlight Theatre Company) and continue to perpetuate an abusive, emotionally and physically damaging environment that the students were forced to endure,” the suit says.

Starlight Theatre Company is the theater program at Bowie.

Cornwell — who did not respond to a request for comment — is now on paid administrative leave, and the district is investigating the allegations. Austin district spokesperson Nayeli Santoyo Flores said the district could not comment on any personnel matters or litigation.

The suit alleges that Cornwell directed students to engage in open mouth kissing and heavy groping during special evening rehearsals, screamed at students to the point where they were in tears and touched male students in a way that made them uncomfortable. 

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According to the suit, Cornwell gave Andrews unidentified pain medication before a performance at a senior awards banquet, which left her heavily sedated to the point that she blacked out, and she also kissed Andrews and another student on the lips before a separate performance. 

Cornwell told Haddad that she was a “slut,” dirty and would only be loved if she used her body, the suit says, and she cast Hagelman as a Vietnamese sex worker in a production of "Miss Saigon" and forced her to give lap dances and perform intimate sexual acts on her male peers on stage, the lawsuit says. 

The suit claims that Cornwell’s abuse caused Havlin to be hospitalized for suicidal ideation, and Andrews also experienced extreme distress and suicidal ideation due to “constant beratement” from Cornwell. De Los Santos was so traumatized by her experiences with Cornwell that she engaged in self-harm for years and developed an eating disorder, according to the suit.

The suit said multiple complaints were made to the district about Cornwell, and the district continued to employ her as a theater teacher and director despite awareness of her “inappropriate and dangerous behavior with students.” The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial and damages for Title IX violations, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and any other causes of action.

The plaintiffs also want Cornwell’s name removed from the Bowie theater space, the hiring of intimacy coordinators and mandatory intimacy training for all district theater programs, monitoring of the Starlight Theatre Company to ensure compliance with federal law, and training on sexual assault, harassment and race and sex discrimination for all district theater programs.

“Since coming forward with their claims, our clients have received extensive support from fellow alumni as well as from current Bowie teachers,” said Jennifer Jones Despins, the plaintiff’s lawyer. “While it was very difficult to speak publicly about their experiences, it does give them some solace to know that this abuse has finally been brought to light and now must be addressed by the district and no longer ignored.”