AUSTIN, Texas — Bowie High School has made a change to the Performing Arts Center previously named after a controversial former theater director.
Diane “Betsy” Cornwell worked for Austin ISD for more than 40 years but was placed on administrative leave in 2022 after allegations that she subjected former students to emotional and verbal abuse and inappropriate touching when they were part of the school’s Starlight Theatre Company between 2004 and 2019. The KVUE Defenders covered the story extensively until Cornwell’s death in September 2023.
Until recently, Bowie High School’s Performing Arts Center still bore Cornwell’s name. But the KVUE Defenders recently received a tip that her name had been removed from the building. In response to a request for information, an Austin ISD spokesperson said, “The letters from the building were removed following an agreement with a group of former students.”
The spokesperson did not say whether the building will be renamed in the future.
Allegations against Betsy Cornwell
In September 2022, the KVUE Defenders first reported that AISD was investigating Cornwell after several former students made allegations against her. The group of Bowie alumni told the Defenders that what they went through was so disturbing, they decided to sue Cornwell and AISD after learning the district planned to name the Performing Arts Center after Cornwell.
The former students told the Defenders about private romance rehearsals that involved groping above and beneath clothing and questioned the teacher’s use of traumatic memories to trigger emotional breakdowns. The allegations were also described in the lawsuit, filed in federal court, which accused Cornwell of “inappropriate sexual comments, inappropriate touching, harmful and abusive language, assault, battery, emotional and psychological abuse and manipulation and allowing sexual assaults to happen under her direction.”
The four alumni the Defenders spoke with said they were traumatized by Cornwell’s teaching methods, and all four were in therapy at the time they spoke with KVUE
In mid-January 2023, four more former students joined the lawsuit. The KVUE Defenders spoke with two of those students in February 2023.
Cornwell was eventually dropped from the federal lawsuit, but in late January 2023, former students filed another lawsuit against her, this time in state district court. That suit accused her of “abusing her power over the plaintiffs for her own perverse ends.”
In August 2023, Cornwell died of natural causes. The following month, the KVUE Defenders caught up with the attorney representing the former students to find out how her death would impact the state and federal lawsuits. The attorney said regarding the federal lawsuit, AISD was the defendant, so Cornwell’s death would affect what discovery was available but not how they made their case. As for the suit against Cornwell, the attorney said at the time that she was exploring options.