The University of Cincinnati may be best known as the alma mater of Travis Kelce, the three-time Super Bowl champion and fiance to Taylor Swift.

A lawsuit by a former professor at the school, alleging anti-white discrimination and tolerance for sexual harassment against whites in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion, could put a tight end to that era and subject the public research university to a cruel summer.

Brian Calfano alleges UCincy nearly drove him to suicide by investigating him for sexual harassment without an accusation and ousting him as journalism department head as retaliation for hiring a white person to advise the student newspaper and supporting her sexual harassment claim against a professor who wanted a racial minority for her job.

When Calfano "resigned to escape an institution determined to destroy him," the university "released his unresolved Title IX file to a newspaper reporter" who had been a student of the alleged sexual harasser, the suit says. The resulting article painted "the unadjudicated allegations as fact" and got him fired from his new job as a TV news anchor.

"He has since found work, but his academic career is over, his broadcast journalism career is over, and his reputation has been irreparably harmed by allegations that were never tested, never adjudicated, and never resolved," according to the suit, which pleads First Amendment and Title IX retaliation and "civil conspiracy to deprive constitutional rights."

Calfano's lawyer, Shams Hirji, told Just the News the university has "waived service and formally appeared in the case" but doesn't have to file an answer or motion to dismiss until April 24. The university's attorney in the case, Drew Corner Piersall, didn't respond to a query.

The case may draw federal interest, considering UCincy is already the subject of a federal antidiscrimination complaint by Protect the Public's Trust based on undercover video by Accuracy in Media.

The video, featuring an AIM investigator posing as a "prospective parent," shows a sociology department administrator calling DEI "a core of our curriculum" and saying, "We can't really strip it out," in spite of Ohio's statutory ban on DEI in curriculum.

The U.S. Department of Education also told two accreditors last week they must remove, not simply pause enforcement of, DEI requirements for accredited institutions to remain recognized by the federal government beyond the short term, deeming them "substantially compliant" – for now – by suspending and staying their faulted policies.

Under Secretary Nicholas Kent directed the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education, in separate letters, to submit two monitoring reports in the next year "describing what actions the agency has taken to eliminate standards that violate federal law."

MSCHE must modify its seven standards to stop "prioritiz[ing] racial diversity over merit," such as through providing "better or more tailored services" to some racial groups, while CAPTE must stop requiring institutions to demonstrate their "culture of justice, equity, diversity, inclusivity, belonging, and anti-racism" without specifying they must be "race-neutral."

Defended white hire against pro-DEI colleague's allegedly 'sexist remarks'

The trouble for Calfano started in mid-2023 when he hired alumna Meghan Goth, a veteran of Cincinnati-area news outlets with a master's in journalism from Columbia, as faculty adviser to The News-Record, under his "unilateral authority" in the bylaws, the suit says.

When journalism professor Bob Jonason, the newspaper's business manager and a lawsuit defendant, asked Goth that July what she'd be earning and learned it was more than his "stipend," he launched into a "verbal tirade that included sexist remarks" and "strongly implied that, as a woman, Goth was not worth her requested compensation."

Calfano advised Goth to seek help from the College of Arts and Sciences’ human resources office, directed by Whitney Follings and overseen by Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and Community Partnerships Littisha Bates, both defendants, the suit says. That summer and fall, Calfano "supported Goth's claims" with HR while submitting her paperwork.

No one from HR responded to Goth's repeated pleas, "perhaps because" several employees objected to a white hire, Calfano alleges, citing his objections to Bates in 2019 forcing him to make irrelevant "race-based additions" to a proposed "course certificate in political reporting" as a condition of her committee's approval.

"Jonason took advantage" of the DEI sentiment to tank Goth, getting Bates to object to the university-wide HR director who answered to then-Provost Valerio Ferme, a defendant, and demand an "uncodified 'DEI' hiring process" never previously disclosed, the suit says.

Follings, the college-specific HR official, told Calfano two weeks before fall semester that Goth's position would be subject to the new DEI requirement. Calfano protested to Bates, Follings and Dean James Mack, warning he might file a collective-bargaining grievance if forced to comply with an unauthorized and racially discriminatory policy.

He escalated to university-wide HR, and in a September meeting that also included Mack, Bates told Calfano he was "angry" and "emotional" and must "check himself."

With help from the department's business manager, Calfano got Goth hired as an editorial adviser – an independent contractor – with the same compensation and responsibilities to circumvent the unofficial DEI requirement for faculty adviser, but he was told it "raised eyebrows" in Mack's office.

University allegedly ignored its own procedures

While Calfano was on family vacation over spring break, Mack's office abruptly removed him as department head and the class he was teaching that semester, initiating an investigation by Provost Ferme's office.

The "hodgepodge of disparate, purported grievances" underlying the charges was allegedly cobbled together "from course evaluations, anecdotal complaints, workplace disagreements, speculative financial issues, and donor-fund account matters," which "could have been refuted through even minimal inquiry" if the university had bothered, the suit says.

His biggest alleged conflict of interest was "flatly false," that he was still employed as a part-time TV reporter when the supposed conflict started, while he had "no authority or ability to oversee" mismanaged donor funds and UCincy itself "publicly promoted" Calfano's work that had taken him away from an honors seminar he taught.

The university violated the collective-bargaining agreement in how it brought CBA charges, skipping past the requisite "progressive discipline" and "informal resolution" and denying Calfano "an opportunity to explain easily verifiable facts."

The preliminary findings "invoked fraud and misappropriation policies without identifying any concrete rule violations, specific dates, or enforceable standards," the suit says.

Several critics "acknowledged their role" in getting Calfano investigated at a faculty meeting after his removal, with Jonason and defendant Jenny Wohlfarth admitting complaining about him to Bates, and Bates admitting she "personally asked" Ferme's office to initiate the investigation. Calfano said administrators didn't consult faculty believed likely to support him.

Returned him to teach 'all-female class' despite investigation

Calfano uses his website to quickly summarize his response to the Title IX investigation against him, which allegedly started a week after his removal when the university "coached certain students to falsely allege" he had "sexually harassed them."

No students were complainants and nobody filed a formal allegation, while the supposedly damning text messages he sent – whose contents have "never been cited" – were "limited to assignments, deadlines, scheduling, and career guidance," the summary says.

As with the CBA charges, the university relied on "vague characterizations" rather than identify any "sexual advances, romantic language, or inappropriate communications," and no students reported "harm, discomfort, or misconduct" or sought Title IX remedies.

UCincy wasn't concerned enough by the allegations to impose sanctions, remove Calfano from teaching or "restrict student contact," even returning him to teach an "all-female class" during the investigation, "signaling institutional confidence in my conduct," he said.

Calfano went on federal medical leave "for mental and emotional health reasons," not to "avoid accountability or a hearing," which the university never gave him even after he requested a post-resignation hearing to clear his name as he started a TV anchor job.

Following Calfano's constructive discharge from UCincy and start at Fox 43 in Kansas, Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Quinlan Bentley – who had a "strong relationship" with his former professors Jonason and Wohlfarth – reported on Calfano's resignation amid the Title IX inquiry "about two weeks" after it happened, highly suspicious timing, the suit says.

The newspaper requested his personnel file five months earlier, "indicating that someone at the University tipped off the newspaper," and "within minutes" of Bentley's story going live, someone sent it to Calfano's new bosses at Fox 43 and "the entire newsroom," suggesting UCincy officials wanted to "further decimate Dr. Calfano’s reputation and career."

He's now a scholar-in-residence at the media technology company Latakoo, which "draws on his expertise, but it is not the career he built over twenty years in academia" nor the broadcast career he planned on post-UCincy, the suit says.

Calfano seeks actual, nominal and punitive damages and orders requiring the university to expunge all records on the CBA and Title IX probes from his personnel file, dismiss the Title IX complaint against him "on the merits, with prejudice" and stop "disclosing the unresolved allegations or investigative materials" from either set of proceedings.