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UK In The News Again

5/19/2018

7 Comments

 
"Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 51 posts on the blog and each has its own set of comments. To read the comments you have to hit the word "Comments" at the beginning or end of the post. Somewhat confusing is that when you bring up the comments for a specific post it eliminates the other posts from the screen. To bring the other posts back up simply go back to the top of the page and click on Blog. Feel free to comment should you wish. No email address is required to make a comment so anonymity is strong. Due to some previous abuse of this right to anonymously comment, I have had to include an approval option, but I try to approve constructive comments within 24 hours. One last point of note, to read the earliest posts you have to click on the word "​<<Previous" at the very bottom of the posts available. Finally, for those just looking for a good summary of the Dr. Kearney case, simply scroll down to the previous 12/10/2016 post. For social media developments on the Dr. Kearney situation I would encourage you to visit the excellent "Save Dr. Kearney Facebook Page": 
https://www.facebook.com/Save-Dr-Kearney-1039697039481791/

An update on the Dr. Kearney case. Dr. Kearney's attorney Mr. Pafunda and the University's hired attorney Mr. Beauman went before Judge Scorsone yesterday for a status conference.

The hearing for the University motion for summary judgement (third time) will be heard on Friday, June 15th.

On the good side, the UK hired lawyers requested a special time for an extended argument. Judge Scorsone denied that request. To paraphrase Judge Scorsone, 'I have the briefs. I have read them. You get 20 minutes to make your argument'.
 

While we wait out Judge Scorsone’s review of the University’s third attempt at dismissal of the Dr. Kearney case, a commenter on the previous post pointed out Ms. Blackford’s May 17, 2018 Herald Leader article entitled: “UK moves to fire professor, says book sales 'stole from students.' He vows to fight”, that I thought might be worth venturing into.  The university professor in question here is Mr. Buck Ryan who had an earlier run-in with the University that we discussed in the Due Process posts of 12/23/2016 and 1/17/2017. If you will remember, this was a case that received local and national attention because Mr. Ryan was administratively punished for “sexual misconduct” for singing a modified version of the Beach Boy’s song “California Girls” at a conference he attended.

The relationship to the Dr. Kearney case and the concern most had was the fact that Mr. Ryan was denied “Due Process”, not permitted to access his confidential personnel file nor see the evidence against him and therefore unable to respond to the allegations made. Interestingly the University lawyers and administration did provide a very questionable letter from Mr. Ryan’s confidential personnel file to a national newspaper, “The College Fix”.  This letter contained few facts in it but plenty of innuendos supporting the contention that this was, as our current US president likes to call it, “a real witch hunt”. It kind of looks like, unfortunately for the “witches” in this case, the authorities could not come up with enough support for their innuendos to fire Mr. Ryan so they were relegated to disciplining him and waiting or searching for another opportunity.

That opportunity may be this new set of charges. The University lawyers are contending in these new proceedings against Mr. Ryan that "without direct permission of the Dean" he used a book he wrote as a teaching tool in the class he taught, and that he failed to give the proceeds from this book ($6000.00) to some approved charity.  Mr. Ryan’s contentions are that: 
​

"Never did I hear during 10 merit reviews by two journalism directors and two deans, from 2007-08 to 2016-17, that 'Writing Baby' was not suitable for my classes or that my approach of allocating profits was inappropriate," he wrote. "At no time did a director or a dean hand me what the auditor's report calls 'strict guidelines regarding self-authored material sales to students.' "

I think most can see where this is going. Very much like the Dr. Kearney case, these charges and actions being taken to drive a tenured faculty member out of the University are unprecedented and smell a bit like the strong-arm vendetta approach the University lawyers are currently using against Dr. Kearney. To begin with I would be willing to bet that although these actions against Mr. Ryan are unprecedented, faculty members using text books or research publications they have authored as teaching aids without express permission by some UK administrator is a highly precedented activity. Furthermore, the amount of money we are talking about here ($6000.00) would appear to be trivial and very disproportionate with respect to the punishment imposed. One would think this could easily be relegated to a fine of some sort. I would speculate $6000.00 to be probably 1/100th the annual salary of the administrators and lawyers involved in these actions being taken against Mr. Ryan, and definitely much less than Keeneland box seats or Iroquois Hunt Club party tickets.


The bottom line being, the University administration and their lawyers, with their lack of negotiating skills and their arrogant strong-arm approach towards dealing with these matters have once again managed to relegate the use of student tuition to the legal office rather than where it needs to be, that being the education of the youth of Kentucky. 
7 Comments
First time longtime
5/20/2018 06:59:02 am

Buck Ryan was inebriated and for want of a better term “hitting on” a Chinese student in a way that made multiple faculty uncomfortable. This is all documented in the university report which he was shown and given the opportunity to rebut. The only difference between Ryan and kearney is that at least kearney admits to some questionable behavior. I have no idea how or if the latest Ryan developments relate to his behavior in China or what grounds Ryan hopes to use to challenge his impending dismissal. But I don’t think it serves you or kearney to align yourselves with Ryan. Talking of which I noticed that kearney was absent from the com faculty council meeting that discussed the misogynistic behavior by the orthopedic surgery fellows..I wonder if he didn’t show up on the advice of his counsel?

Reply
Dan Noonan
5/21/2018 05:26:23 am

Thanks for the comment First time. I fully understand your concerns with regards to the earlier charges against Mr. Ryan, but I guess my concerns are the lack of due process afforded Mr. Ryan in the handling of these charges and the manner in which these charges were investigated by the university. The redacted investigation report/letter provided by Patty Bender to The College Fix nowhere states anything about inebriation and has several other items in it that would suggest a highly biased person/committee investigating these claims. These include:
1. There were suggestions in the report of inappropriate behavior towards female students but none of the information provided would suggest that these student(s) were interviewed or that they confirmed these claims.
2. There was the unconfirmed insinuation that Mr. Ryan slept with some student (walking one morning and “she” was wearing his UK shirt). The straightforward questions would be: a) how would this person reporting this actually know this was Mr. Ryan’s shirt, b) was the student in question interviewed about this claim, and c) if unconfirmed why was this insinuation even included in the investigation report.
3. Then there was the conversation Ms. Bender had with the female faculty member who “revealed that there have been other complaints…unrelated to my investigation”. Why even include this in the report without first documenting its accuracy. It is nothing more than hearsay, could represent a historical bias on the part of the claim maker and could also suggest a bias on the part of Ms. Bender.
4. Finally, the actions taken by the University and Mr. Blanton’s response that the university is not required to provide due process would support the claim that some have made that this case against Mr. Ryan was based completely upon hearsay.

Like I said, I fully understand your concerns and I have similar concerns about a behavior issue of this nature, but these are serious claims these people are making and on the surface from the information provided, the university would appear to have done a very poor job of confirming the accuracy of them.

With regard to this newest charge against Mr. Ryan, the punishment just does not seem to fit the crime. Similar to the Dr. Kearney vendetta, it looks too much like an abuse of university authority in which they take an activity that they for all practical purposes have endorsed for years and now twist it into a crime that they wish to use to fire this faculty member who challenged their authority in this earlier case. The question being, whose next?

Reply
Doo Process
5/21/2018 03:19:45 pm

First Time Longtime is obviously playing for the UK side. I have known Buck Ryan a very long time Mr. Longtime. Not only are the allegations ridiculous, they are implausible. The report relies solely on the word of two other faculty members. There are/were no complaints from the Chinese student(s) or the Chinese administrators. In fact the Chinese students approached Mr. Ryan because one of the faculty members who lodged the complaint against Mr. Ryan was, in their words, "Creeping them out.". In a polite way Buck informed that individual to be cautious about his behavior. No good deed goes unpunished. In short, the entire report is a made up piece of business by UK. To allege that a modified Beach Boys song was sexually offensive is laughable. My prediction is the Mr. Ryan will win his battle with UK and in the process, Mr. Thro, Capilouto, and the University will be embarrassed.

On the Orthopedic front, these were orthopedic surgical residents not fellows. Their crude jokes were posted in their work room and directed at one another and no one else. While I do not condone that, many things are said or done behind closed doors that are not for public consumption. They are adults and should have known better. Give an apology and move on. This was a classic 'tempest in a teapot.' Here the punishment does not fit the crime. The Orthopedic Chair and residency program director were given the choice of stepping down and keeping their jobs or being fired for cause. Not much of a choice. Where was the due process here? How about none.

These two cases along with Dr. Kearney's flight reflect the intimidation and stench emanating from General Counsel Thro and President Capilouto's office. Makes me sick.

Reply
Dan Noonan
5/22/2018 02:09:47 am

Thanks for your comment Doo Process. As I document above, there does appear to be a lack of objectivity in the earlier investigations into Mr. Ryan’s behavior at that conference, and these newest actions against Mr. Ryan also appear to be more retaliatory than fitting the crime (or some might even say “understandable mistakes”) they claim he committed. I know nothing about the orthopedic residents incident so I won’t comment on that.

Reply
Scooby doo doo process
5/22/2018 02:22:24 pm

Wouldn’t it just be easier to behave in a way that doesn’t offend people or make students or residents or colleagues uncomfortable?
Do you think the already small number of female surgery residents were comfortable with the offensive pictures? And why didn’t kearney go to the faculty council meeting and support the surgery residents due process rights?how do we know who put the pictures up?

Reply
Dan Noonan
5/22/2018 04:11:07 pm

Thanks Scooby doo for the comments. Like I said above, I know nothing with respect to what this orthopedic incident is all about, so I prefer not to interject uninformed opinions on the matter. Having said that, I do know from my life experiences that human beings, especially young human beings, have a propensity to make stupid mistakes.

With respect to why Dr. Kearney was not at the Faculty Council meeting I cannot even guess, but I think it a bit unfair to speculate that this incident had anything to do with his absence. With the University occupying as much of his time and money as they can in court proceedings, while at the same time doing all that they can to bar him from interacting with students and colleagues in the hospital, I can think of a number of reasons why Dr. Kearney might have been unaware of this incident or not been able to make it to this meeting. Furthermore, I know from two terms on this Council, that comprehensive meeting agendas are often not provided prior to the meeting.

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4/24/2020 01:33:37 am

This is my first time i visit here. I found so many interesting stuff in your blog especially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all the enjoyment here! keep up the good work

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