A former Elon University accounting professor is suing the university for allegedly denying him tenure – the equivalent of termination in academia – after he filed a whistleblower complaint about another professor who he claims had helped students cheat on their IRS certification exams.
The former professor, Ray A. Knight of Winston-Salem, claims that he was removed from his role as director of Elon University’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program after he reported the alleged “cheating scandal” to leaders within the accounting department and to senior administrators at Elon University.
Students in the business school at Elon University who are IRS-certified volunteer with the VITA program to prepare income tax returns for lower-income people in the Burlington area, according to the university.
Two years after filing the whistleblower complaint, Knight was denied tenure in 2023 “with illegal animus,” even though he’d received a “glowing recommendation” when he applied for tenure, his federal suit alleges.
A Certified Public Accountant and licensed attorney, Knight has decades of experience practicing and teaching accounting, including at Western Kentucky University, Mississippi State University, Middle Tennessee University, and Wake Forest University, according to a brief statement of his professional background outlined in his suit.
The plaintiff has also worked for three of the four biggest accounting firms in the U.S.: Ernst & Young; KPMG; and Pricewaterhouse Coopers, in addition to writing or co-writing “more than 135 professional and peer-reviewed publications.”
As a tenure-track professor in the Love School of Business at Elon University, Knight published approximately 20 scholarly articles, taught core tax courses, and “nearly completed a book on tax fraud,” according to his suit. His teaching, scholarship, and leadership of the IRS VITA program were praised by the dean of the business school, Raghu Tadepalli, in 2020 for a midpoint review (evaluation) of his eligibility for tenure.
However, Knight claims that his retaliatory and wrongful termination was part of a broader pattern of age-based discrimination at Elon University. For an example, he alleges that, in April 2019, Elon University president Dr. Connie Book “made age-based remarks to full professors, suggesting older faculty were blocking younger faculty from tenure opportunities.”
Moreover, the suit alleges that the current chairman of the accounting department at Elon, Dr. Catherine Chiang, had told another accounting professor, Joseph Lakatos, that Knight “‘would be gone in two years’ because he ‘was of that age,’ and later stated that [Knight] ‘would not be granted tenure.’”
Knight claims that Daniel Lanier, then-chairman of the accounting department, had criticized Knight’s publication record as “‘worthless,’ despite [his] being the most productive scholar in the department,” the federal suit asserts.
Retaliation for reporting another professor who allegedly helped students cheat on exams
In 2021, Knight claims to have learned that Dr. Susan Anderson – an accounting professor and the faculty advisor for the VITA program until her retirement in July 2021 – had improperly provided students with answers to IRS VITA exams.
Those online, open-book exams are mandatory for university accounting students and cover topics such as ethics/standards of conduct, intake processes, and tax law, according to the IRS, which develops and administers the VITA exams.
In his suit, Knight alleges that he reported Anderson’s “misconduct” in September 2021 to Lanier, who removed him from his role as director of the VITA program and replaced him with a newly-hired faculty member – an action that Knight characterizes as “immediate retaliation.”
Knight filed a formal whistleblower complaint about the alleged “cheating scandal” with the dean of the business school, Tadepalli, and Elon University’s human resources department in February 2022, according to his suit.
Despite having previously suggested that Knight was too old to be granted tenure,
Chiang, the current chairman of the accounting department, gave him a “glowing recommendation, praising [his] teaching, scholarship, and service” when he submitted his tenure application in the fall of 2022.
However, Tadepalli, the dean of the business school, issued a negative recommendation, and Knight was denied tenure in March 2023, Knight claims in his suit.
The plaintiff claims that he had been denied tenure because he had reported “violations of federal law and misuse of federal program resources” – i.e., the alleged faculty-assisted cheating on VITA exams – despite state and federal protections for whistleblower complaints.
Knight is asking a federal judge to order Elon University to reinstate him to a faculty position, or to compensate him for any past and future lost wages and benefits due to wrongful termination. He is also seeking unspecified punitive damages and compensatory damages caused by emotional distress and reputational harm, plus an award for court costs.
Knight is also asking a judge to order Elon University to give him “a favorable letter of reference consistent with [his] tenure recommendation.”
In addition, the plaintiff is also seeking agreements in which both parties will agree to protect confidential information (mutual confidentiality releases) and to refrain from making any negative statements (mutual non-disparagement releases), according to the suit, which was filed earlier this month in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
Knight, a licensed attorney since 1981, is representing himself for his suit against the university. The court file lists his address as 3124 Allerton Lake Drive, Winston-Salem.
Elon University had not filed a response to the lawsuit by press time Wednesday. Defendants generally have 21 days from the date on which they are served with notice of a complaint to file a response, under the federal rules of civil procedure.
