A former Auburn University assistant track and field coach is suing the school’s board of trustees for discrimination and alleges another member of the coaching staff physically assaulted him in 2015.

Adrian Ghioroaie-Panait, now an assistant coach at the University of Toledo, filed the lawsuit last week with the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. Defendants in the case are listed as Auburn’s board of trustees and Henry Rolle, assistant head coach of track and field.

The 17-page lawsuit follows Ghioroaie-Panait’s termination from Auburn and a charge of discrimination he filed last year. In the documents, he claims he was discriminated against by Rolle and other African-American members of the athletic department, because he is of Romanian descent and nationality.

 

“Upon the beginning of my contract with Auburn, Auburn promised me it would assist me with obtaining a green card or continuing work visa,” Ghioroaie-Panait wrote in the discrimination charge, filed October 2016. “Approximately $4,000 was paid by the department for my green card sponsorship to an Atlanta attorney. As the process to obtain a green card can take several years, I believed Auburn’s sponsorship of my obtaining a green card was an indication of a long relationship with the university.”

In May 2015, Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs sent a letter to then-president Jay Gogue, recognizing the Romanian native as a coach in good standing and accepting green card sponsorship.

Ghioroaie-Panait was employed by Auburn from January 2014 to May 2016. During that time, the student athletes whom he coached scored 26.5 of the team’s total 47.5 NCAA points. But Ghioroaie-Panait alleges he felt unsafe at Auburn due to harassment and at least one incident of physical violence from Rolle, a native of the Bahamas.

The documents site an incident on Oct. 1, 2015, during which Rolle attacked Ghioroaie-Panait at a coaches’ meeting.

“Coach Rolle put his hands around my neck and started to squeeze,” Ghioroaie-Panait wrote. “I was frightened and grabbed my cell phone to record the incident, but head coach Ralph Spry grabbed my phone out of my hand. The other coaches in the meeting attempted to intervene, and Coach Rolle picked up a metal tiger statue and started swinging it toward my head.”

Rolle was unable to strike Ghioroaie-Panait with the statue, but the jump coach said red marks were visible on his neck for two days after the incident.

The lawsuit filed last week includes a footnote accusing Rolle of “a pattern of unsafe behavior.”

“He was observed intimidating and yelling at a female student athlete on the team,” the document states. “During a track program evaluation by Dr. Green, female student athletes interviewed as a group stated they don’t feel safe with Coach Rolle.”

The suit also claims Rolle and Spry call student athletes by inappropriate names. “The administration was aware of this practice, because student athletes complained about being called names,” it states.

Ghioroaie-Panait is suing the university and Rolle for Title VII race discrimination, national origin discrimination, discrimination based on color, retaliation, assault and battery. Among his demands listed in the suit are the school giving him back pay, compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and other costs.

In the lawsuit, he says there were other unreported incidents of aggression from Rolle toward him. Ghioroaie-Panait also made reports to Spry about possible NCAA and university safety rules violations, some by Rolle.

 

“At one point, Human Resources suggested that I simply not speak to Coach Rolle, even if he was threatening me or invading my personal space,” Ghioroaie-Panait says in the discrimination charge. “During a meeting on March 9, 2016, the Auburn official from Human Resources asked me if I was lying. Shortly after that meeting, I was told I was going to be evaluated by Coach Spry for my first, and only, time since I started coaching at Auburn.”

On May 1, 2016, Ghioroaie-Panait was told his contract would not be renewed, and he would not be allowed to finish the 2016 outdoor track and field season. This also prevented him from participating in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio as a track coach for any Auburn athletes who qualified for the Olympic trials.

“When I asked why my contract was not being renewed, I was initially told they did not need a reason for not renewing my contract, and it was without cause,” Ghioroaie-Panait stated in the documents. “Eventually, Head Coach Spry asked me if I remembered when I threatened to sue the university when I complained about him and Coach Rolle maintaining an unsafe, abusive and stressful working environment. I believe this was the true motivation behind failing to renew my contract.”

This is the latest issue involving coaches in the embattled Auburn athletic department. Head softball coach Clint Myers resigned in August, after claims surfaced that he allowed his son, former assistant coach Corey Myers, to have relations with players on the team. Last month, the men's basketball program came under fire when associate head coach Chuck Person was named in an NCAA-wide federal corruption investigation. 

Asked for comment by the Opelika-Auburn News, Auburn Athletics issued a one-sentence statement Monday evening:  "We will not comment on pending litigation."