The former head of the University of Cincinnati’s journalism department who resigned in 2025 amid allegations that he sexually harassed students is suing the university, several administrators and others alleging that they “systematically destroyed his career, his reputation and nearly his life.”
Among the claims in the lawsuit filed by Brian Calfano is that university officials “coached” students “to falsely allege that (he) had sexually harassed them.”
Calfano’s lawsuit, filed Feb. 23 in federal court in Cincinnati, says the university launched two investigations into him, not to seek the truth but instead to oust him “by any means necessary.”
It alleges retaliation as well as a conspiracy to deprive Calfano of his constitutional rights.
A university spokeswoman did not respond to emails seeking comment.
The lawsuit says the stress from the investigations led to a mental health crisis and a suicide attempt in 2024. Calfano ultimately resigned from the university in January 2025 to take a job as a nighttime news anchor in Kansas.
But that same month, according to the lawsuit, after The Enquirer published a story about Calfano leaving amid the sexual harassment claims, he was fired from the job at the Kansas news station.
‘Radicalized agenda’
The 30-page complaint traces the alleged campaign against Calfano to his decision in 2023, as head of the journalism department, to appoint Meghan Goth as faculty advisor to the student-run newspaper, the News Record.
The appointment of Goth, an adjunct professor who worked at several local news outlets including The Enquirer, led to tensions between her and a professor who was the newspaper’s business manager, according to the lawsuit. After the professor, Robert Jonason, learned that the $18,000 stipend Goth requested would be more than the $15,000 he received, he launched into a “verbal tirade that included sexist remarks,” the lawsuit says.
That incident led Goth to try to get assistance from the human resources office that serves the journalism department. According to the lawsuit, Goth tried repeatedly over several months to contact the office’s director, Whitney Follings, but Follings did not respond.
The lawsuit alleges that an associate dean who oversaw the human resources office, Littisha Bates, directed Follings to ignore Goth’s complaints.
According to the lawsuit, some university officials did not believe Goth, who is white, should have been given the job.
Jonason, according to the lawsuit, objected to Goth’s hiring with human resources and found a receptive audience in Bates, “who had long pushed a radicalized agenda at the university.”
Jonason, Bates and Follings did not respond to messages seeking comment. Goth declined to comment.
In August 2023, according to the lawsuit, Follings told Calfano that Goth’s employment application would be subject to the “newly asserted DEI hiring requirement.” Calfano objected to the DEI requirement and warned university officials, including the dean of the arts and sciences college, that he might file a grievance.
The lawsuit says Calfano ultimately worked with a journalism program official to circumvent the DEI hiring process, paying Goth as an independent contractor. The arrangement, according to the lawsuit, was endorsed by an unspecified person in the university’s human resources department.
Alleged backlash over DEI mandate
The hiring of Goth led to a backlash against Calfano, according to the lawsuit. In March 2024, while on vacation, Calfano received emails informing him that he was being removed as head of the journalism department – and that the university was investigating him.
He was also removed from teaching a media class.
The lawsuit describes the allegations against Calfano as a “hodgepodge” of complaints and grievances that were baseless and easily refuted.
There was a false conflict-of-interest claim, according to the lawsuit, that Calfano had outside employment interfering with his teaching duties. The lawsuit says another accusation involving mismanaged donor funds could not be true, because Calfano “had no authority or ability to oversee” the funds.
Also, the lawsuit alleges there were procedural irregularities surrounding the investigation, including that university officials never contacted Calfano to discuss the allegations or allow him to explain easily verifiable facts.
“This was not a good-faith disciplinary proceeding,” the lawsuit says. “It was an administrative weapon deployed in retaliation for Dr. Calfano’s opposition to the DEI mandate and his support for Meghan Goth.”
Hospital stay
About two weeks after that investigation began, Calfano was admitted to an inpatient mental health facility, according to the lawsuit. He had attempted suicide, the lawsuit says.
Calfano was discharged two days later, and his doctors submitted paperwork recommending he take partial medical leave.
The lawsuit also alleges that after Calfano was removed as department head in March 2024, “the university coached certain students to falsely allege that Dr. Calfano had sexually harassed them.”
The second investigation involving Calfano surrounded possible violations of Title IX, which governs how schools handle sexual harassment on campus.
Days before the Title IX complaint was filed against him, according to the lawsuit, Goth again alleged that Jonason was engaging in hostile conduct toward her, including by locking her out of the the News Record’s offices.
Second investigation
The Title IX investigation looked into complaints that Calfano made inappropriate comments, told students to share their personal cellphone numbers with him and created a group chat with only female students. There were also allegations that Calfano sent Snapchat friend requests only to women in his class.
Calfano also was accused of touching a student’s “upper chest and collar bone area” − without the student’s consent − after saying he needed to fix a microphone, according to documents from the Title IX investigation.
The documents said Calfano asked a student to meet with him in New York City over spring break and asked a student to “get drinks” with him.
The lawsuit addresses some of those allegations, calling them “pedagogical choices inherent to broadcast journalism.”
Sharing cellphone numbers is standard newsroom practice for coordination, according to the lawsuit. And creating group chats with students who volunteered as on-air anchors and briefly adjusting a lapel microphone during taping are “activities that occur routinely in broadcast programs nationwide.”
The allegations, it says, did not satisfy the university’s own definition of sexual harassment. And none involved a sexual advance or proposition, or the conditioning of academic benefits on sexual favors.
“There was simply no basis to classify the allegations against Dr. Calfano as ‘sexual harassment’ – a fact that further confirms the investigation was initiated not to enforce Title IX, but to retaliate against” him, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit notes that despite the two investigations, Calfano was not barred from campus or restricted from contacting students and was not placed on administrative leave.
Calfano is seeking unspecified monetary damages, an order expunging records that were part of the two investigations, a permanent injunction against disclosure of materials from either investigation, and a declaration from the university that his rights were violated.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: DEI hiring dispute led University of Cincinnati to oust professor, lawsuit says
Reporting by Kevin Grasha, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
