Utah has revoked the license of Provo Canyon School's Springville campus, citing chronic noncompliance with health and safety rules — more than 50 years after children first started reporting abuse at the facility. The state was supposed to be regulating this place the entire time.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services pulled the license Monday, citing failures going back to January 2025: unnecessary physical restraints, neglected care, inadequate staff-to-client ratios, and failure to run background checks on employees. In May, the state imposed temporary restrictions after staff failed to get immediate medical care for a student with serious injuries.
The revocation only covers the Springville campus. The Provo campus, which operates under a separate license, still has its doors open — just with conditions attached. All services at Springville must end by August 6, and no new enrollments are permitted.
Paris Hilton, who spent nearly a year at the school in the late 1990s, has alleged staff beat her, watched her shower, forced her to take unknown pills, and locked her in solitary confinement without clothing. "For more than fifty years, children came forward with stories of abuse, neglect, and trauma," Hilton said in a statement. "Today, the state confirmed what survivors have known all along: Provo Canyon School failed the children in their care."
Fifty years. Children reported abuse for half a century while the state of Utah — which licensed and oversaw this facility — did nothing. It took a hotel heiress with a platform, congressional testimony, and multiple lawsuits before regulators fulfilled their basic obligation.
In June, Hilton returned to the school to support two families who filed lawsuits alleging their children were mistreated. One student, identified as "B.H." in court documents, suffered at the Provo campus; another, "A.C.," faced neglect at an unspecified campus.
The school's current ownership has pulled the convenient dodge: they claim they cannot comment on anything that happened before they took over, including Hilton's time there. New owners, same institution, zero accountability for what came before.
Utah has long been a hub for what's called the "troubled teen industry" — a network of private, for-profit residential centers that warehouse kids with behavioral issues. Parents hand over their children to these facilities trusting the state has vetted them. The state, clearly, had not.
Hilton has helped pass laws protecting teens in Utah and 15 other states. That's commendable. It's also an indictment. When it takes a celebrity's decades-long crusade to force a state agency to do its job, the system isn't working. The same government that dragged its feet for 50 years on institutional child abuse is the one parents are told to trust.
The school has 15 days to request an administrative hearing. Provo Canyon School did not respond to requests for comment.
