Ex-prof fired for porn files suit He claims UTSA's actions destroyed his reputation.

Ronald Ayers, a tenured UTSA professor fired for allegedly accessing pornography on his work computer, is suing the school for wrongful termination. Ronald Ayers, a tenured UTSA professor fired for allegedly accessing pornography on his work computer, is suing the school for wrongful termination. Photo: BILLY CALZADA, BILLY CALZADA / Gcalzada@express-news.net Photo: BILLY CALZADA, BILLY CALZADA / Gcalzada@express-news.net Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Ex-prof fired for porn files suit 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

A former economics professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio who was fired in 2007 for viewing pornography on an office computer has sued the university in federal court to get his job back, claiming officials violated his constitutional right to free speech.

In a lawsuit filed earlier this year in U.S. District Court, Ronald Ayers, who taught at UTSA for nearly three decades and had tenure, accused university officials of “vindictive vendetta-style termination tactics,” including falsely targeting him for child pornography, causing irreparable damage to his reputation.

“It wraps itself around your mind that people are always going to believe these terrible things about you,” said Ayers, now 63. “I did not do the things the university accused me of.”

Though Ayers admits to viewing pornography on his work computer, he denies ever accessing child pornography.

David Gabler, a spokesman for UTSA, declined to discuss details of the lawsuit, but said he felt confident that the university's decision would be vindicated in court.

Officials began investigating Ayers in 2006 after a graduate student filed a police report saying she overheard sexual noises coming from Ayers' office. Since Ayers was alone in his office, the student concluded he was masturbating to pornography. Ayers denied the incident ever happened.

UTSA staff scrubbed Ayers' computer and found evidence he had accessed pornographic websites. Some included the word “teen,” raising alarms about potential child pornography.

According to university documents, Ayers at first denied allegations he viewed pornography. When confronted with a printout of his computer records, he conceded that it may have happened at the end of a long work day. Ayers later told administrators it was for academic research.

In an interview, Ayers declined to elaborate on why he accessed pornography, but said the university has no right to restrict such activity. At the time, UTSA's computer use policy banned accessing “obscene materials.”

“The job description of being a professor says to discover knowledge in all of its forms,” Ayers said.

Ayers claims other professors at UTSA have accessed pornography but were not punished. His lawyer, Glenn Levy, has asked for the Internet history of every tenured professor at UTSA over multiple years. The university is resisting, saying it would unduly burden staff, Levy said.

According to university officials, Ayers requested and was granted medical leave after being confronted about the pornography. Ayers disputes that account.

Lynda de la Vina, dean of the business school, “told me I would either go on medical leave or be fired immediately,” Ayers said. “I knew I did not need to see a medical professional, but I felt threatened.”

Ayers also said the dean told him that if they found child pornography on his computer, he would be taken away in handcuffs.

He said the university never found child pornography on his computer, and he got a clean bill of mental health from a doctor, but was fired anyway. In a termination letter, Ricardo Romo, president of UTSA, accuses Ayers of accessing “sexually explicit” websites and lying about it when confronted.

Ayers appealed to a faculty tribunal, which found that Ayers had used poor judgment but should not have been fired. The five-member panel said the school's computer use policy banned accessing “obscene” materials, but Romo accused Ayers of accessing “sexually explicit” materials, so the policy did not apply.

UTSA since has reworded its policy to include sexually explicit materials. Gabler has said that regardless of word choice, the policy's intent has always been to bar professors from viewing pornography from a work computer unless there is prior written consent for academic purposes.

The university appealed the tribunal's decision to the UT Board of Regents, who sided with the university and upheld Ayers' termination.

Ayers claims the university also engaged in a smear campaign against him by releasing personal emails in which Ayers talked dirty about young women in his classes.

For example, in one email Ayers talks about a student who bends over and exposes her “huge chest puppies” as they go over exam questions together.

“She has the look I have seen you (and me) go for in certain magazines. I would describe it as the beautiful, dumb, full-figured nude model/pron star look,” Ayers wrote to a professor at Palo Alto College. Throughout the exchanges, the word “porn” was misspelled, apparently to throw off computer filters.

The emails were released at the request of the Express-News under the open records law, but were not cited as cause for Ayers' termination. Ayers claims the emails were unrelated to official university business and not subject to the Public Information Act.

UTSA officials submitted the emails to the faculty tribunal as evidence of Ayers' state of mind, but the tribunal decided they were irrelevant and did not consider them.

Ayers now says the emails were taken out of context.

“There was satire, self-mockery. A lot of it was grounded in reading evolutionary psychology and feminist thought,” Ayers said. An acquaintance characterized the emails as “boy talk,” Ayers said.

When news reports detailing the emails were published, Ayers claims someone wrote “death” in the dust on his car. He unplugged his phone. He could barely eat and his anxiety disorder worsened.

“If the accusations levied against me were true, and if I was that person portrayed, I would have quietly resigned and sent a letter of apology to all my colleagues,” Ayers said. “Whatever I have written in private, that is not the person I am.”

Ayers said he has not tried to find another job, but imagines it would be impossible after the negative press coverage. In his years at UTSA, Ayers taught thousands of students, co-authored some 30 textbooks, won prestigious teaching awards and served as chairman of the Faculty Senate.

“I have not given up my dream of becoming a voice in the great American debate, of becoming a respected thinker with important things to say,” Ayers said. He said he is considering writing a book about the travails of someone who has been wrongly accused.

“It's an emotional rollercoaster,” Ayers said. “People tend to remember the accusations and put all the weight on the accusations, not the exonerations. How do I get my good name back? One way is filing a lawsuit and getting the complete truth out.”