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A former tenured professor at the University of Cincinnati has filed a lawsuit claiming officials retaliated against him and essentially “destroyed his career” after he spoke up against diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Former Professor Brian Calfano, an award-winning journalist who served as the journalism department chair since 2021, filed the lawsuit in late February.
“First, he objected when the University imposed an unauthorized, race-based hiring policy that violated its own bylaws,” the lawsuit alleges. “Second, he supported a female colleague who reported sexist conduct by a male faculty member.”
These actions prompted a series of events in which “administrators systematically destroyed his career, his reputation, and nearly his life,” the lawsuit alleges.
University of Cincinnati’s media relations division did not respond to requests for comment from The College Fix.
The dispute began in February 2024 when Calfano appointed Meghan Goth, a white woman, as faculty advisor to the student newspaper, The News Record. According to the lawsuit, this task was part of his role as department chair.
“At the time of her appointment, she had worked for roughly fifteen years as a news manager at local news outlets in greater Cincinnati across multiple platforms, including newspaper, digital, and television,” the lawsuit states, adding she held a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and is an alumna of the University of Cincinnati’s journalism department.
Calfano believed she was the most qualified person for the job and that it was within his right as department head to make the selection, the complaint states.
But Goth’s hiring was initially stymied by university officials, and when Calfano raised concerns of racial discrimination over an unofficial DEI hiring process he was told he must follow, an associate dean reportedly told him to “check himself,” the lawsuit alleges.
Calfano also supported Goth when, after she had been hired, she filed claims of sexism against a fellow journalism faculty advisor at the university, another thing that upset campus officials, who launched two pretextual investigations against Calfano, the lawsuit alleges.
The first was over alleged misconduct, and the second was a Title IX sexual harassment investigation initiated by administrators, it states.
Calfano was removed as department head in March 2024, barred from teaching, and faced severe stress leading to weight loss, a suicide attempt, hospitalization, and medical leave, according to the complaint. He resigned entirely as a faculty member in January 2025.
According to a post on Medium, Calfano states the Title IX claims cobbled together were tame, non-sexual in nature, and part of his teaching of a broadcast journalism class.
They included adjusting a student’s microphone or brushing a strand of hair off a shoulder before filming after asking permission, asking students about hobbies as a way to generate story ideas, working with students in his office on edits, and requiring students to appear professional on camera, the post stated.
“Ultimately, I chose to leave the university voluntarily before the investigation concluded. I accepted a dream job in television news rather than participate in a process I believed was predisposed to a negative outcome. I was not fired, suspended, or formally sanctioned by the university at any point,” Calfano wrote.
However, after Calfano left, someone leaked a copy of his unresolved Title IX file to a reporter, resulting in a damaging newspaper article that led to Calfano’s firing from his brand new TV news anchor job days later, the complaint alleges.
The lawsuit seeks damages, expungement of investigation records, a permanent injunction against further disclosures, and a declaration of rights violations.
Calfano’s personal website also details a list of grievances against his former university.
Calfano’s lawyer, Shams Hirji, said the case should concern faculty at universities across the country.
“Dr. Calfano was voicing his disagreement with an unauthorized DEI policy that was impeding his ability to hire someone who he believed was the most qualified person for the job,” Hirji told The College Fix in an interview.
In return for voicing his views, Hirji said, Calfano faced an investigation for alleged misconduct, including a conflict of interest claim from his work as a TV reporter while at the university.
But the complaint points out Calfano had resigned from his part-time television reporter position months before the supposed conflict would have begun.
“Had the university done basic due diligence, they would have realized that was demonstrably false,” Hirji said. “They didn’t do that because they wanted to punish Dr. Calfano for his First Amendment-protected speech.”
Hirji also flagged the fact that the Title IX probe was launched by administrators, not a student complaint.
“This is one of the rare instances where a Title IX investigation was filed not on behalf of any one individual complainants or multiple complainants,” Hirji said, adding it supports the claim of a retaliatory campaign against Calfano.
“The purpose was not to engage in an investigation for a disciplinary purpose, but rather to punish Dr. Calfano for exercising his First Amendment rights,” he said.
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