Three criminology instructors at the center of an academic integrity scandal are suing the University of Texas at Dallas, saying its leaders stepped up efforts to fire them in recent weeks after The Dallas Morning News prepared to publish an investigation into the problems.

The News' Feb. 3 story essentially disrupted school officials' plan to keep the scandal and their own misconduct secret, according to the suit, filed Tuesday in Dallas federal court.

It was UTD leaders’ plan to drop termination proceedings against instructors “and hope the controversy never saw the light of day — until their hand was forced when the DMN published its story,’’ the suit said.

In an emailed statement late Tuesday, UTD spokesman John Walls declined to comment on the suit, saying disciplinary actions against the faculty members are ongoing.

"We have acted lawfully in all respects with regard to all individuals involved with this matter,'' Walls said in an email. "We have not been served with a lawsuit so we cannot comment on any claims of which we are unaware.''

Based on a University of Texas System investigative report and other records, the story detailed how instructors allegedly told police officers enrolled in a special master’s program that they could skip classes yet nevertheless gave them top grades and credit. The story also highlighted failures by university leaders to heed red flags in recent years pointing to improper practices.

The university’s provost had said the practices could amount to academic fraud. But the instructors denied wrongdoing, saying they were merely giving the students credit for non-college work they had completed outside the university. They also said that the university had approved the arrangement.

In their lawsuit, the faculty members — Robert Taylor, John Worrall and Galia Cohen — allege that the university has denied them due process rights to fair employment proceedings. UTD put them on notice last July that they were initiating termination proceedings but had not contacted them until days before The News investigation published, according to the lawsuit.

UTD leaders didn't want the scandal to "enter the public view,'' the suit said. But once The News started asking questions, the instructors say in their lawsuit, school officials began illegally releasing private information that cast them in a bad light, distorting the facts. As a result, Worrall and Cohen lost job offers.

University officials worked “at high levels to conceal their misconduct from the UT Board of Regents and the Chancellor of the UT System as well as the public," the lawsuit states.

University of Texas at Dallas professor Robert Taylor helped found one of the professional develop programs for which UTD students received credit. He and two other professors have sued UTD, accusing the school of violating their employee due process rights. (University of North Texas at Dallas)

The News' story, based on multiple records and the investigative report, detailed how Taylor and Worrall set up the master's program eight years ago, in part to make money for the university. The instructors also stood to benefit financially from recruiting students.

Cohen told investigators the credit transfer process was the "main recruiting tool" for the program. In the investigative report, she described how students were told they would receive As in classes but they should not attend.

The review found credits were awarded without official authorization. It also portrayed Taylor and Worrall as pressuring another faculty member, who later blew the whistle on the program, to stay quiet about the improper grading and credit swap.

"It sounds like you've been stirring s---,'' Worrall reportedly told the whistleblower when asked about the transfer credit issue.

The News found that university officials had missed clues that could have alerted them to problems in the master's program. For example, Worrall had unsuccessfully sought approval for a similar credit-transfer plan a few years ago.

Worrall, Taylor and Cohen remain instructors at the school.

Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, said it's common for termination proceedings, particularly involving tenured professors, to drag on for months. Taylor and Worrall are tenured.

"The business model is just that: You're terminated and you hand in your keys at the end of the day," Pasquerella said. "In academia, there are systems of shared governance that mitigate against that."

The UT system's termination policy does not provide a specific timeline for the process but sets out several steps that must be taken before firings are finalized.

The News found more than 80 people graduated from the program, some of whom went on to become chiefs of police agencies in North Texas. While UTD says students are innocent actors, the scandal casts a pall over the degrees.

After the instructors' practices came to light in late 2017, UTD administrators and faculty hastily developed a policy to ensure that students who got the inappropriate credit would still earn their degrees. They also adopted a policy describing what work done outside UTD can be accepted as equivalent credit.

In late 2018, the school's accrediting body, following its own review, affirmed UTD's accreditation. That means any punishment of UTD stemming from the scandal is unlikely.