Five years of cover letters to UK sexual misconduct investigations revealed that the university’s office of Title IX investigated eight faculty members, and recommended that two leave the university. 

Christopher Romanek and Anthony Wolbarst resigned from the university following their investigations in 2013.

Both made settlement agreements with the university that would not disclose details of their investigations, and that personnel records would only disclose the reason for the resignation, “e.g. resignation for personal reasons.” 

Romanek was investigated for having a relationship with a student that eventually prompted her to file a complaint with Title IX. 

The cover letter written by UK Title IX Coordinator Patty Bender said that Romanek refused to arrange for the student to have a different adviser, and treated the student negatively after she refused the relationship and refused to reconsider her decision. 

Romanek was suspended from campus, but the case resolved after he came to an agreement with the university to voluntarily resign, and receive three months pay and $25,000.

Romanek is now a research professor in the Earth and Environmental Science Department of Furman University. 

Wolbarst was investigated and found responsible on two accounts by UK. He was first investigated for inappropriate comments, and second for retaliating in relation to the first complaint. 

He came to an agreement with the university to resign, but would receive his salary of $126,344 from February to September of 2013, and maintain his retirement benefits.

The settlement agreement also said that if the university is asked about the nature of his termination, then it will respond by stating that he voluntarily resigned, and would release a memo which said he retired in 2013.

In addition to the two faculty members who left the university, journalism associate professor Buck Ryan was also investigated and found responsible for inappropriate behavior and language, while at Jilin University in China.

Ryan said that the investigation and subsequent punishment, including losing university travel funding and forfeiting a Gaines Center award, were unfair and violated his constitutional rights. 

“I was convicted without trial of inappropriate behavior, which never occurred, with two women students,” Ryan said in an email to the Kernel. He sang “California Girls” by the Beach Boys to students at a closing ceremony. 

He said that Dean Dan O’Hair of the UK College of Communication and Information never spoke with him before issuing the punishment, and that the university said he had no right to due process. 

UK Spokesman Jay Blanton said in a column for The Lexington Herald-Leader that Ryan was “manipulating facts,” and that two of the Chinese universities Ryan visited had complained about him. 

“The faculty were unanimous in their complaints and their concerns, in which a preponderance of evidence concluded that he engaged in ‘inappropriate touching’ and ‘language of a sexual nature,’” Blanton said. 

He also said that if Ryan wanted the investigation to be examined by the public, he could waive his personal privacy rights, and the university would release the investigative report and his emails to university officials, with redactions to protect student privacy. 

Altogether, UK released cover letters to 57 investigations, many of which recommended that the employee be fired or be required to take sexual harassment training. 

The cover letters were heavily redacted to exclude details of the complaints, names and identifiers of those involved.