HOUSTON – A former Baylor University financial aid officer who sued the university contending she was terminated because she reinstated the scholarship of a former football player wrongly kicked off the team for alleged sexual misconduct settled the case last week in an agreement with the university.
A federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division agreed to dismiss the case on May 23. The case came under Title IX, a federal anti-discrimination law banning discrimination based on sex.
Lyn Wheeler Kinyon and officials of Baylor University announced they had resolved their dispute by agreement and filed a joint motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Kinyon had been reportedly seeking damages of approximately $700,000. Her annual salary was just over $100,000.
Kinyon filed suit against the university last January maintaining that she had been wrongly terminated under Title IX also called the Gender Equity Law, used when accusing someone of mishandling sexual assault complaints.
According to a report filed by attorneys for Baylor University, university officials called Kinyon’s lawsuit a blatant attempt to take advantage of the school by using the publicity surrounding several other ongoing cases involving sexual assault by students at the university.
Kinyon alleged that Dr. Reagan Ramsower, senior vice president and chief operating officer at Baylor, directed Kinyon’s supervisor to fire her because he became angry she had reinstated the football player’s scholarship. Officials at the school called the charge “pure fiction” according to the report.
The player has been identified in media reports as Baylor defensive tackle Jeremy Faulk.
Under National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) regulations, a student athlete has 14 days to appeal a terminated scholarship. In this case, the appeal was made to a three-person committee chaired by Kinyon.
At a later appeal hearing attorneys for Baylor University did not rely on charges of sexual misconduct because an investigation in the case was still proceeding, but instead based the scholarship termination on Faulk's alleged failure to disclose information on his admission application to Baylor.
The committee reinstated the scholarship, however Faulk did not return to Baylor University.
Calls to comment on the case to John Judge, Kinyon’s attorney at Judge Kostera Putman PC and Julie A. Springer, attorney for Baylor University, were not returned.