Ohio State professor who resigned sues university for not accommodating her disabilities

Sheridan Hendrix and Monroe Trombly, The Columbus Dispatch
·4 min read
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Angela Bryant sent her supervisor an email about two years ago resigning from her job as a tenured sociology professor at OSU-Newark. However, she says she sent the email while suffering from a mental health crisis. She has filed a lawsuit against the university.
Angela Bryant sent her supervisor an email about two years ago resigning from her job as a tenured sociology professor at OSU-Newark. However, she says she sent the email while suffering from a mental health crisis. She has filed a lawsuit against the university.

A former Ohio State University professor has filed a lawsuit against her former employer in federal court, claiming the school and several of its leaders violated her civil rights by not accommodating her mental health disabilities and denying her medical leave.

Angela Bryant, who taught sociology at Ohio State's regional campus in Newark from 2007 to 2020, filed the suit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in Columbus, asking a judge to force the university to reinstate her.

In addition to Ohio State, the lawsuit names university President Kristina M. Johnson, Provost Melissa Gilliam, Dean and Director of the Newark campus William MacDonald and chair of OSU's Department of Sociology Kristi Williams.

What happened leading up to Bryant's resignation?

In the fall of 2020, Bryant sent a profanity-laden email to Ryan King, telling him she was resigning from her tenured position.

"Effective today at 10:50 AM, on 11/10/2020 from my WORK COMPUTER.... I resign! Go (expletive) yourselves bc you are about to PAY UP! Sincerely, DR. Angela NICOLE Bryant," she wrote.

King, then-chair of Ohio State's sociology department, replied to Bryant two days later saying that he had accepted her resignation and that her last day with the university would be two weeks later on Nov. 24.

But Bryant told The Dispatch last month that she made what she now calls a regrettable decision to resign while experiencing a mental health crisis brought on by bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorder.

She claims not to have remembered sending the email and has said she only realized what she had done while involuntarily hospitalized at Harding Hospital.

Bryant contends that her superiors and university officials were aware of her mental health struggles and used the email as an excuse to get rid of her.

"...The University saw a resignation as the easiest way to cut off its otherwise permanent commitment to honor the tenure of an employee whom they now viewed, based on discriminatory and unsupported stereotypes, as high-risk, alienating, and likely to require continuing, costly accommodations," the lawsuit reads.

Bryant still holds out hope the university will reinstate her, said Fred Gittes, her attorney. But filing a complaint in federal court was necessary because a statute of limitations was set to expire and this gives them the option to sue, he added.

"It gives her another 90 days to decide whether she really has to sue," Gittes said.

Chris Booker, an Ohio State spokesperson, said that the university is committed to supporting the health and well-being of our faculty, staff and students.

"While Ohio State takes individual privacy concerns seriously and cannot comment further on this specific case, the Ohio Civil Rights Commission has affirmed Ohio State’s handling of this sensitive employment matter," Booker said.

What's in the lawsuit?

For more than a year, Bryant, 47, has been trying to get her job back, in part by attempting to put pressure on university leadership by appealing to fellow faculty members.

At least two faculty committees examined Bryant's case, with one concluding that her supervisors' treatment of her email as a formal resignation constituted an infringement on her academic freedom.

The Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility (CAFR), a committee of the University Senate that hears grievances about faculty employment, recommended in a report from April 2021 that Bryant be reinstated to her position, which the lawsuit also demands.

Bryant last month said she didn't plan to sue the university and wanted to give her former employer "the ability to correct course."

But the lawsuit says Bryant has exhausted all "internal avenues of relief."

The lawsuit also accuses Ohio State of failing to accommodate Bryant's mental health disabilities when the university's human resources department decided that she had to submit documentation "only directly, on her own behalf, or through a person she authorized in a direct communication with OSU human resources to communicate on her behalf."

Bryant was unable to comply with OSU's requests for information because she interpreted those requests as attacks and threats against her, the lawsuit reads.

"Her supervisors and Ohio State’s human resources representatives were aware Dr. Bryant was not capable of communicating clearly regarding her need for leave and other accommodations, but refused to approve her leave unless she personally approved the submission of specific documentation," the lawsuit reads.

Sheridan Hendrix is a higher education reporter at the Columbus Dispatch. You can reach her at shendrix@dispatch.com. You can follow her on Twitter at @sheridan120. Sign up for her Mobile Newsroom newsletter here and her education newsletter here.

Monroe Trombly covers breaking and trending news. You can email him at mtrombly@dispatch.com and follow him on Twitter at @monroetrombly.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Former professor says Ohio State abused her disability