Brandon Scott Rumsey was accepted into the prestigious Masters’ program in composition at the University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music in 2012. For a first-generation college student who took their first music courses at community college, it was a thrill. “It felt like I had hit the lottery—being someone who didn’t have a ton of connections who was discovering along the way that I was capable and decent in writing music,” Rumsey said. “And I didn’t want to screw that up.” Rumsey graduated from UT Austin in 2014. But they were still processing their experience when, on October 16, 2017, they first made the decision to speak about alleged sexual harassment at the school by their composition professor, Dan Welcher. Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, and Ronan Farrow’s meticulous reporting on Harvey Weinstein had just been published, and the #MeToo hashtag was spurring conversations on sexual harassment worldwide. Rumsey’s Facebook post that day was simple: “Me, too,” they wrote.
Music’s Perpetually Open Secret
18 years after they were first reported, allegations of sexual harassment at the Butler School of Music have continued
