‘An unconscionable effort to intimidate.’ UK president blasts professor’s lawsuit.
A federal lawsuit filed by an embattled University of Kentucky journalism professor against four top university officials has been dismissed.
But UK Associate Professor Buck Ryan, who was disciplined for alleged inappropriate behavior on a school trip to China in 2015, has now sued the university and a student in Fayette Circuit Court.
The state lawsuit is just the latest in a nearly three-year battle between Ryan and university officials.
UK President Eli Capilouto called Ryan’s latest lawsuit “an unconscionable effort to intimidate” in a campus-wide email sent Friday.
“Professor Ryan also has sued one of our students who bravely came forward,” Capilouto said. “We will not allow a member of our community to be intimidated. In addition to defending our university and Title IX coordinator, we will be paying for our student’s defense.”
Robert Abell, a lawyer for Ryan, said Ryan was not trying to intimidate anyone.
“There is no attempt to intimidate; there is a claim arising from a published defamation,” Abell said of the state court lawsuit.
In 2016, Ryan was sanctioned by the Office of Institutional Equity, which oversees Title IX complaints, for his behavior on a 2015 trip to China with other UK professors, saying “more than a preponderance of the evidence reveals that Mr. Ryan acted inappropriately in violation of the discrimination and harassment policy prohibiting inappropriate touching and language of a sexual nature.”
In May 2018, UK officials recommended dismissal proceedings against Ryan after an internal audit found that he had violated university policy by requiring his students to buy his textbook, “Writing Baby, Editing Dog and You: A Friendly Place to Begin Your Writing,” and keeping the royalties. A faculty senate committee later found there was not enough evidence of wrongdoing to justify firing Ryan.
Last November, university officials sent a letter to Ryan telling him that he would no longer teach Journalism 101 because of numerous student complaints about his teaching performance and a “significant” drop in enrollment for that important gateway class.
Ryan filed the federal lawsuit this spring alleging UK officials defamed and retaliated against him when he fought efforts to fire him. UK said the lawsuit was baseless.
U.S. District Court Judge Karen Caldwell dismissed the federal lawsuit in late November.
On Monday, Ryan filed the state lawsuit against the UK Board of Trustees; Martha Alexander, executive director and Title IX coordinator of UK’s office of Institutional Equity; and a UK student who he says filed a Title IX complaint about him in 2018
In the suit filed in Fayette Circuit Court, Ryan alleges retaliation by the university and Alexander and defamation by the student.
He claims the Office of Institutional Equity was used “to retaliate against Ryan when public disclosures of its malpractice subjected the university and its administration to public ridicule and embarrassment.”
And he says Alexander “aided and abetted the defamation and false light injuries” that the student allegedly caused “by ordering Ryan that he could not disclose that OIE had been forced to conclude that no evidence supported” the student’s complaint.
The lawsuit alleges Ryan was targeted by the administration for termination in part because of Ryan’s vocal support of the Kentucky Kernel, the UK student newspaper, and its efforts to obtain records regarding harassment.
UK sued the Kernel in Fayette Circuit Court in 2016 as part of its appeal against an attorney general’s opinion that found that the school had violated the Kentucky Open Records Act by withholding documents regarding a professor’s sexual harassment and assault case from the Kernel.
The university’s decision to sue the independent student newspaper was ridiculed by the national press, Ryan alleges in the state court lawsuit. In court documents, Ryan said he asked Capilouto to drop the lawsuit and apologize to the Kernel’s then-editor.
That’s one of the reasons why the university has tried to force him out, he alleges.
Ryan also alleges the student’s Title IX complaint was “baseless and in no way alleged any discrimination or discriminatory act or statement by Ryan.”
The Kernel reported in November 2018 a student had filed the complaint alleging Ryan had been calling and texting her outside of class and on weekends, and offered her tickets to a UK football game.
Ryan has said he was only trying to help the student. The lawsuit also said at a meeting with Alexander regarding the student’s complaint that Alexander also wanted to discuss “another baseless, unsubstantiated and frivolous complaint.”
It’s not clear what that other complaint was about.
Regardless, Ryan said in the lawsuit he was notified by Alexander that the investigation had “determined the baseless complaints were not supported by evidence.”
But the lawsuit alleges Alexander found Ryan had acted inappropriately by communicating with students via text messages regarding class and other academic matters.
“Alexander’s assertion that Ryan’s proper and well-intended communications with students was inappropriate was arbitrary and capricious,” the lawsuit alleges.
In his email, Capilouto said the lawsuit targets people who come forward to report possible wrongdoing.
“Every member of our community must be able to seek assistance without fear of retaliation. Reporting behavior that is perceived as threatening, unwanted, or harassing is essential to the safety and security of our campus,” Capilouto said.
Ryan continues to receive his salary of $116,741.25 but no longer teaches. His duties in December 2018 included research and other services.
“Professor Ryan has been working with college administrators to clarify the expectations for his research and service responsibilities,” university spokesman Jay Blanton said in a statement. “He is not on the schedule to teach classes in the spring.”
This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 3:53 PM.
