Student accuser: University of Cincinnati flute professor 'held the keys to my future'

Several former students spoke with The Enquirer about Bradley Garner, a flute professor who was investigated by the University of Cincinnati for allegations of sexual harassment. The Enquirer has not identified several of the women at their request. 

Young flutists idolize Bradley Garner. They have posters of him on their walls. He was the first person to earn a Doctorate of Musical Arts in flute performance from the Juilliard School. He has played with the New York Philharmonic and around the world.

Some say they also heard the stories about his other side – stories of sexual misconduct like those that multiple students and a professor told University of Cincinnati investigators.

More:Flute students accuse ex-University of Cincinnati professor of 2 decades of sexual misconduct

Still, many chose to study with him.

“CCM for flute players was like getting into Yale,” a 2017 CCM graduate said. “I thought that maybe I could let that stuff go and ignore it and get better at the flute.

“He’s so well known and his students get jobs,” she said. “And that’s what I wanted.”

She first met him at a flute retreat when she was 15 years old. 

There, "he commented more on my appearance than anything else,” the 2017 graduate said. “He said I was so cute and he wished he was my age."

At the time, she said, she was just happy he was giving her attention.

“There’s a sense of brushing it under the table and, ‘It’s OK because they’re really talented,’” a current CCM student said of reputable musicians like Garner. “We’ll all still go sit in their recital and talk to them and get our photos taken.”

Garner also had students' careers in his hands.

“In the way that Harvey Weinstein controlled actresses, your reputation depended on whether or not he liked you,” the current CCM student said. “It was like your career is going to suffer if you speak out or if you don’t seem like you’re enjoying the things that he’s saying or doing.”

Even 20 years ago, Garner’s students had the same fears.

“He held the keys to my future,” said CCM graduate Keren Schweitzer, who studied with Garner from 1995 to 1997. “And he could destroy me.”

Garner was the one getting her auditions, arranging for her to get lessons with James Galway and letting her substitute-teach at Juilliard, she said. 

While she studied with Garner, he flirted with students and said inappropriate things to her about her weight and her religion, she said.

“These professors at these conservatories have immense power, and they wield it over you,” Schweitzer said. "It was a toxic environment for the entire studio."

Former students used words like "anxiety" and "uncomfortable" to describe how they felt when they were in Garner's studio.

"There's a sort of tension that existed the whole time because of the sexual nature of his comments," the 2017 CCM graduate said.

Garner used a flute stabilization technique during his lessons where he would attach a rubber band to the waistbands of students' pants and touch their lower backs. Once while doing that, the 2017 graduate said, Garner told her, “Not that I want to pull your skirt up, but I actually do.”

At the beginning of one semester, a girl was playing flute in front of the class and when she stopped, Garner said, "So do you want your spanking now or later?” the current CCM student told The Enquirer. 

She also spoke to UC about Garner's inappropriate behavior, but after the university's preliminary investigative report was concluded.

"He wanted us all to look a certain way, he wanted us all to stand a certain way, to play a certain way,” she said. “It made me feel kind of like a piece of meat.”

"If you did get offended or if you pushed him away, suddenly you wouldn’t be playing a great part in orchestra anymore or you’d be shunned," the current CCM student said. "There was always this recourse, and that’s how he was able to keep power within the studio."

Talented musicians need to make themselves vulnerable and impressionable, the 2017 CCM graduate said.

Garner took advantage of that, she said, and used his power to slowly tear his students down.

“He fueled a feeling of unworthiness” in weekly one-on-one classes, the 2017 CCM graduate said.

She also said Garner was possessive of his students. Multiple students told The Enquirer and investigators they weren't allowed to switch studios or study with other instructors. Garner threatened scholarship money, they said, and had students sign a contract in his syllabus legally binding them to his studio. The UC investigators received a copy of the contract. 

After two years of studying with him to earn her master’s, the 2017 CCM graduate decided to be his teaching assistant. She still feels guilty about it.

“I thought the reward was greater than the burden of it all,” she said.

She’d be getting a doctoral degree for free and getting paid. The credential of “Bradley Garner’s teaching assistant” was her ticket to becoming a flute professor herself.

Then, the harassment became too much for her to handle.

“I was on edge all the time,” she said. “Just being in the building gave me a visceral reaction.”

As a teaching assistant, students started coming to her upset about Garner’s behavior, she said.

She started going to counseling at the university. She said her therapist encouraged her to make a Title IX complaint and told her that as a university employee, he’d also have to report the things she was telling him. She said she made an anonymous complaint about Garner to the Title IX office in the spring of 2016. She said nothing ever happened. UC's legal department said no Title IX complaints were made against Garner beyond the ones that came in October 2016.

Others she confided in told her: “Deal with it. Be quiet. Get your degree. Get out. Get a job. It will be fine and you won’t have to think about it again. It’s going to be good for your career.”

She kept studying with him.

Throughout her five years at CCM, she told The Enquirer, she would say to herself, ‘This isn’t right, I’ve got to say something.’

“But it felt so insurmountable,” she said.

Then, finally, another student wanted to speak up.

And a faculty member listened to them. A Title IX investigator listened to them. A dean listened to them.

“He’s just another human being on this planet like we all are,” the 2017 CCM graduate said. “Just because he’s really good at the flute doesn’t give him any power over anyone else and it doesn’t give him a right to do the shit he’s doing.”

UC opened an investigation based on their reports of “systemic sexual harassment” and immediately suspended Garner.

Garner denied the accusations in a sworn affidavit he provided to UC. In that testimony, he also said one of his student accusers had "a pattern of being unreliable and untruthful."

The students who filed the complaint said they wanted to stop him from teaching so that no one else would go through what they and so many others had.

“I just kept trying to remove my musician self from it,” the 2017 CCM graduate said, “and think about my duty as a human being to help other people.”

The Title IX investigation was wrapped up in about two months.

But the hearing, where three of Garner's accusers told The Enquirer they were prepared to face Garner and testify against him, wouldn’t be scheduled for more than a year. Throughout the year, the students said they never knew when that day would come. It kept getting pushed back.

Then, Garner retired in December 2017, before the disciplinary hearing ever happened.

“All of our lives revolved around this thing,” the 2017 graduate said. “For him to have that power still and then just decide ‘OK, I’m going to retire now’ is infuriating.”

And even now, after the investigation, people ask her: “Why are you doing this? Why are you speaking up? Why are you talking about this? This is career suicide.”

She’s tired of hearing it, she said, although she knows it’s going to be damaging.

“I’m applying for jobs and I have to go into this without Garner’s reference,” the 2017 CCM graduate said. “He is the biggest influence on my flute life.”

She even feels guilty about coming forward.

“There’s a part of me that feels bad for him because I do feel like I owe him a lot as far as flute goes,” she said. “I just have to remind myself … that doesn’t warrant the behavior that he showed. It doesn’t make it OK.”