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Fired professor refiles lawsuit against Ohio University in federal court
By: David Forster
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — A former Ohio University professor who was fired over sexual harassment claims has again filed a lawsuit against the university in federal court.
Much of the lawsuit filed Friday by Yusuf Kalyango is identical to a lawsuit he filed against the university two years ago in the same court.
The lawsuit filed in September 2020 was dismissed by a mutual agreement last April, two weeks after the university’s board of trustees voted unanimously that Kalayango should be fired.
The new lawsuit includes a new section that addresses the process through which Kalyango was terminated.
In December 2020, a committee of the university’s Faculty Senate held a two-day hearing to review the evidence in the two claims against Kalyango, who was a tenured professor in the journalism school.
The claims had been investigated by the university’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights Compliance, and in each case the investigator concluded Kalyango had sexually harassed the student.
These investigations led to hearings by two University Professional Ethics Committees, which also found the evidence supported the sexual harassment claims and recommended Kalyango lose his tenure and be fired.
The Faculty Senate committee disagreed. In a report to the university’s president, the committee recommended Kalyango keep his tenure and be reinstated as a full faculty member. Kalyango at that point was still being paid but was no longer allowed on campus or to interact with students.
The report was leaked to the media and it triggered a backlash by students and others. It also led to a vote by the full Faculty Senate that the report be withdrawn from the board of trustees’ consideration.
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 returned four weeks later with the same recommendation, which the board rejected.
One of the main points of disagreement between the trustees and the faculty committee was over the proper standard of evidence for weighing the evidence against Kalyango.
The committee had used a clear and convincing standard, which is a much higher burden to meet than preponderance of the evidence. It defended its use of this standard in its second report to the board, arguing this is the standard that had been prescribed years earlier by the university’s Office of Legal Affairs and used in previous tenure revocation hearings.
The trustees relied on a policy addressing sexual harassment and misconduct in the university’s administrative manual, which stipulates that the preponderance standard, which means more likely than not, should be used in sexual misconduct cases.
The trustees also said their decision in Kalyango’s case would have been the same under either standard.
Kalyango’s new lawsuit argues the board bowed to public pressure and “in an unprecedented, discriminatory, and retaliatory decision … lowered the standard of proof to ‘preponderance of the evidence’ so that it could disregard” the committee’s findings and recommendation.
The lawsuit alleges that the board “conspired to overturn” the committee’s recommendation because it “wanted to make a public statement against sexual harassment, knowing the University had tolerated and condoned far worse conduct by other professors.”
The lawsuit further alleges Kalyango was singled out for harsher treatment because he is Black, arguing the board did not want to accept the committee’s findings in part because the committee concluded “there was evidence of systematic racism and professors of color were treated differently.”
WOUB reached out to Kalyango’s attorneys for comment on the new lawsuit but did not get a response by the time this story was published.
A spokesperson for Ohio University said the university believes the lawsuit is unfounded but otherwise cannot comment on pending litigation.
Through the lawsuit, Kalyango is asking among other things that he be reinstated as a full tenured professor and receive back pay.