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Ohio University paid $400,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a professor fired for sexual harassment
By: David Forster
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — Ohio University paid $400,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a former journalism professor who was fired over claims that he sexually harassed two female students.
Yusuf Kalyango filed the lawsuit in federal court in April 2022, one year after the university’s board of trustees voted to fire him.
Kalyango alleged he was a victim of discrimination because of his race, national origin and his gender. He is a Black man who was born in East Africa.
He also claimed he faced retaliation for pushing back against this alleged discrimination.
The university was preparing for trial, including making arrangements with at least one of the female students to return to Ohio to testify, when the case settled in June 2024.
Most civil cases do not go to trial and are instead settled out of court. The university also settled a lawsuit brought by one of the female students over her harassment allegations. It paid her $90,000.
Kalyango received $200,000 for lost wages and $200,000 for noneconomic injuries, which could include things like emotional distress and damage to reputation. The university also agreed to extend the same tuition benefits to Kalayango’s two sons that children of university employees are entitled to receive.
WOUB was unable to reach Kalyango for comment. Ohio University provided a copy of the settlement agreement but did not respond to a request for comment about its decision to settle.
Tess Herman, one of the students who made the harassment claims, provided the following comment by email:
“Let’s not forget that this all started because students were put into dangerous circumstances. I hope that Ohio University works more effectively and efficiently to protect students better in the future.”
Claims stem from trips with students
Herman filed her sexual harassment claim against Kalyango in July 2017. She was a graduate student in the journalism school and worked with Kalyango on a study abroad program in Africa.
Herman claimed that Kalyango retaliated against her after she refused his suggestion that they share a room together for a night while in Africa. Herman alleged that after the program was over, Kalyango falsified her job performance reviews to make her look less competent.
Kalyango denied these allegations.
The investigation into Herman’s claim led to the reopening of a sexual harassment claim against Kalyango made several years earlier. That claim involved a female undergraduate student who participated in a study abroad program in Africa with Kalyango in 2011.
The initial investigation into the allegations, which were made by another student on the trip, culminated in a report early in 2012 that found no evidence of wrongdoing by Kalyango.
The investigator who processed Herman’s complaint tracked down the female student from the older case. After their visit, she changed her original statement denying harassment and agreed to talk about what happened during her time with Kalyango in Africa and on another trip.
She alleged that Kalyango made arrangements for them to share a hotel room together and made unwanted advances on several occasions. She said she had been reluctant to talk about it during the first investigation for fear of retaliation because she was still a student at the time.
The investigation into Herman’s complaint and the reopened investigation into the other student’s case both ended in reports that concluded Kalyango had engaged in sexual harassment.
In both cases, the university convened a faculty committee to review the reports and make a recommendation about punishment. The committees in both cases recommended Kalyango be stripped of his tenure.
Once professors earn tenure, it is a difficult and multilayered process to fire them.
Leaked report drew public backlash
This process is detailed in the university’s Faculty Handbook. The final step before the matter goes before the board of trustees for a final decision is a hearing by a Faculty Senate special committee.
The hearing was conducted over two days in early December 2020 and included testimony from multiple witnesses, including the two women who filed the harassment complaints against Kalyango.
In a 5-to-1 decision, the committee said that it did not find the evidence of sexual harassment convincing and also said that there were flaws in the original investigations that denied Kalyango of his due process rights. The committee recommended that Kalyango keep his tenure and be allowed to resume his full duties as a professor.
Kalyango had been placed on administrative leave with pay during the investigations, meaning he could work on administrative matters but could not teach or have any contact with students.
The committee’s report and recommendations were not made public but exploded into public view two months later when the document was leaked to the media. This triggered a social media backlash, mostly by students and former students.
The Faculty Senate voted to withdraw the committee’s recommendation. In a resolution, the Senate said the committee’s hearing was “fatally flawed and violated university policy.”
The resolution said the committee applied the wrong standard of proof. The university’s standard for sexual harassment cases is a preponderance of the evidence, which is a much lower threshold than the clear and convincing evidence standard used by the committee. Preponderance of the evidence loosely translates to more likely than not.
The resolution also said the committee overstepped its authority by engaging in its own fact finding and basing its decision on this instead of the investigations conducted by the university’s civil rights office.
The resolution cited the university’s sexual harassment policy. This policy makes clear the civil rights office is the finder of facts in sexual harassment investigations and that a preponderance of the evidence standard applies.
Board rejected committee’s recommendation
But it was too late to withdraw the special committee’s report because it had already been forwarded to the board of trustees.
The board decided to go ahead and take up the committee’s recommendation. At a special meeting in March 2021, the board raised multiple concerns about the process leading to the recommendation, and it directed the committee to reconsider its decision and report back to the board.
The committee came back a few weeks later with the same recommendation.
The board rejected the committee’s recommendation and said it was clear Kalyango had sexually harassed the two students. The board voted unanimously at a special meeting in early April 2021 to fire him.
Throughout the multiyear process that led to his termination, Kalyango argued he was a victim of discrimination. He filed several legal actions and multiple complaints with federal and university anti-discrimination offices.
Kalyango claimed in legal filings the university had a practice of believing women over men in discrimination cases and that it was “[t]aken by the ‘me too’ hysteria that swept the nation” and bowed to public pressure in his case.
He also claimed that white professors at the university accused of more serious offenses than the claims against him received much more lenient punishment.
In the federal lawsuit he filed a year after he was fired, the one the university settled for $400,000, Kalyango claimed the years of investigations leading up to his termination were retaliation over his efforts to defend himself.
Editor’s note: WOUB is only now reporting the June 2024 settlement because it recently learned of the payments to Kalyango through the university’s salary database, which is updated annually.