Content warning: this story contains sexual topics. It may not be appropriate for all readers.
University of Connecticut (UConn) professor Ricardo Salazar-Rey is currently under investigation for interactions with students that may violate the school’s anti-harassment policy. UConn’s Office for Inclusion and Civil Rights (formerly the Office of Institutional Equity) received a complaint from a student in April alleging Salazar-Rey, an assistant history professor at the school’s Stamford campus, made inappropriate conversations in text messages, including saying he thought the student might be his soulmate and expressing a desire to have young children with them.
Salazar-Rey has previously been investigated twice over allegations he violated UConn’s Policy Against Discrimination, Harassment and Related Interpersonal Violence and was twice found to have acted inappropriately. Salazar-Rey received a 15-day suspension without pay following the second finding against him.
UConn’s anti-discrimination policy bans all amorous relationships between faculty and undergraduate students and relationships between faculty and graduate students they directly manage.
“All faculty and staff must be aware that amorous relationships with students are likely to lead to difficulties and have the potential to place faculty and staff at great personal and professional risk. The power difference inherent in the faculty-student or staff-student relationship means that any amorous relationship between a faculty or staff member and a student is potentially exploitative or could at any time be perceived as exploitative and should be avoided.” the school’s policy states.
University spokesperson Stephanie Reitz confirmed to Inside Investigator that Salazar-Rey is currently on administrative leave “pending the outcome of procedures outlined in Article 27 of the UConn-AAUP collective bargaining agreement,” which governs discipline for tenured faculty.
According to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, OICR received a report from a student services official in April 2026 outlining a conversation in which a student expressed concern about interactions they had via text message with Salazar-Rey. The student reported that, at the start of the semester, Salazar-Rey told students he preferred to communicate through his personal cell phone, including for class-related matters, like assignment questions. The student also reported that, after they initially reached out following an absence from class, Salazar-Rey began texting frequently, even if they didn’t respond immediately.
“He would send me all types of material that was (sic) related to things I had said in class. When I wouldn’t respond he would continue texting me. I would engage because that was the respectful thing to do. He is my professor, and you have to respond to your professors.” the student wrote in their report to OICR. “Recently, he made comments regarding his desire of a relationship and having young children. He explicitly mentioned that he thinks I may be his soulmate and mentioned that he enjoys the sentiment of that. I feel as though a line has been crossed and I’m very uncomfortable going to his classes at this point because of the fact that he has leverage over me.”
In text messages between Salazar-Rey and the student obtained by Inside Investigator, Salazar-Rey shares a screenshot of a social media post with a comment reading “Just because she likes some bizarro crap you do doesn’t mean she’s your soul mate.”
“Want it to be us?” Salazar-Rey wrote in the next message.
When the student reacted to another text with a laughing emoji, Salazar-Rey wrote, “I like it when you laugh.”
In another message, he wrote, “I want a parter (sic) and an empire I can love and serve. Would not mind a bunch of little kids. I missed mine. I did my best but I’ve got a hunger. Never saw it coming.”
“I’m sure you will find that again.” the student replied.
“Unless it’s you, I’m not sure that you can be sure. But the sentiment is much appreciated.’ he responded.
Other records Inside Investigator obtained show OICR employees discussing placing Salazar-Rey on administrative leave following receipt of the complaint.
“Once OICR is ready for him to be alerted to the fact that there are more complaints and there will be an investigation, we can put him on administrative leave.” Director of Labor Relations Kelly Bannister wrote in an April 16 email.
Salazar-Rey was notified of the investigation, and allegations he had violated provisions in UConn’s Policy Against Discrimination, Harassment and Related Interpersonal Violence prohibiting inappropriate amorous relationships and sexual harassment, on April 27.
“Specifically, the information OICR received alleges that beginning in February 2026 and continuing through April 2026, you texted with a student enrolled in your History 1600 W course in pursuit of a prohibited amorous relationship and that you offered this student educational advantages due to this interaction.” the investigation notice states. The student later reached out to clarify they were not alleging Salazar-Rey had offered “educational advantages.”
Salazar-Rey was placed on paid administrative leave on April 28 after he was notified of the investigation.
Salazar-Rey has previously been investigated twice by OICR (formerly OIE), once in 2019 and once in 2023.
In 2019, an undergraduate student enrolled in one of Salazar-Rey’s classes reported that he attempted to kiss her without her consent when she volunteered to drive him to his residence after they had been working on a project.
According to the report, Salazar-Rey asked the student to help him carry things inside. After she used the bathroom and went to pick up her keys from a table, Salazar-Rey allegedly grabbed her by the waist and tried to kiss her. She filed a police report the next day.
Salazar-Rey denied the allegations, claiming that he had hugged her when she left, and that he only did so because he knew the student prior to her enrollment at UConn through his son.
Because the incident only involved two conflicting accounts, OIE found there was not enough evidence to establish a violation of UConn’s sexual harassment policy, but did find the incident potentially violated other policies, including the school’s Code of Conduct.
Salazar-Rey was given a formal letter of reprimand.
In 2023, a second complaint made by a former undergraduate student alleged Salazar-Rey had sexually harassed her and sought an amorous relationship. According to the complaint, Salazar-Rey frequently texted the complainant, complimented her appearance, and made comments suggesting he wanted a relationship.
After the student sent Salazar-Rey a video about trying to assemble a chair, he replied that she needed to “seduce” a male student to assist.
“Why go seduce another [male] when I come pre-seduced and I’m ready to help?” Salazar-Rey wrote.
OIE found evidence of romantic intent and that it was “more likely than not” that Salazar-Rey’s conduct met the definition of the “pursuit of an amorous relationship” as defined in school policy. The 2019 investigation was taken into account in contemplating disciplinary measures, with officials noting Salazar-Rey had previously been given leniency based on his stated recognition of the seriousness of his actions.
Salazar-Rey was suspended for 15 days without pay and was not allowed to teach during the summer of 2024.
According to emails Inside Investigator obtained, concerns about Salazar-Rey’s behavior related to that incident also had broader impacts. In June 2026, Mark Healey, head of UConn’s History Department, sent an email to OICR investigator Jamila Goolgar outlining additional concerns the department had about Salazar-Rey’s behavior with the student behind the 2023 complaint, who had been working under Salazar-Rey and “broke off contact” to finish a thesis under a different faculty member, which led to his office being moved.
“It was her impending return to campus as a researcher and staff member in late spring 2025 that was the decisive impetus for moving Salazar-Rey’s office.” Healey wrote. In the same email, he wrote that he and another faculty member had been discussing moving Salazar-Rey’s office “with less urgency for several months” prior to the student’s return.
In June, Healey also emailed Jamila outlining other concerns he had with Salazar-Rey’s behavior. Healey shared Facebook posts Salazar-Rey had written, some translated from Spanish, that Healey said showed increasing hostility towards him.
One post, which Salazar-Rey posted on August 27, 2025, contains a picture of a t-shirt that reads “per my last email” and depicts images of one stick figure physically assaulting another. Salazar-Rey’s caption reads, “I’m such a great employee I got my boss a motivational shirt.”
Other posts express frustration with the move of Salazar-Rey’s office, which, according to Healey’s emails, occurred when he was away and “nonresponsive to emails,” leading to campus movers handling the majority of the move. Salazar-Rey posted a picture of his things in moving containers with the caption “It’s a good punishment.”
“My adorable colleagues, the new word they like to repeat all the time is collegial, but I think they got confused about language, because although they say it in English when you can take someone’s office away from them and stick everything in a closet which doesn’t even hold the books that I have spent 10 years gathering and organizing and now I’m going to have to throw away/donate.” Salazar-Rey wrote in another post, translated from Spanish. “Boxes of everything I had found, gathered, and organized with the help of my students and my children. Now they fill this closet without windows or air, there isn’t even room for two people to sit.”
Other posts complain about Salazar-Rey’s level of pay and express frustration with UConn.
In Healey’s email to Googlar, he describes what he sees as an increasing pattern of hostility in Salazar-Rey’s posts, both against Healey and the university.
“The most consistent complaint in these posts is that the university does not pay him enough. While I have tried on multiple occasions to explain how raises and merit pay work, and to outline what I could do as head to advocate for him and I did not have the power to do, these explanations have not sunk in. For instance, he claimed repeatedly that I simply ignored his requests for a raise and said it was “not our problem”; that is flatly untrue.” Healey wrote to Goolgar. “What I said was that the university regarded the question of where faculty choose to live as “not our problem”, so a request for a raise based primarily on the Stamford cost of living would not succeed.”
Healey further added that he was sharing the posts because of the “troubling pattern” it showed, even if they did not violate OICR policies.
“Nonetheless, given his past pattern of anger in the face of OICR investigations, and given that he has threatened me, however vaguely, I thought this should be brought to your attention as well as that of [College of Liberal Arts and Sciences] leadership and Labor Relations.” Healey wrote.
To date, Inside Investigator has identified nearly $4 million paid to public university employees after a finding of misconduct against them.
Editor’s Note: Sexual misconduct on college campus is a topic Inside Investigator continually covers as part of our ongoing mission to root out corruption. Read our multi-award-winning investigation about sexual misconduct on CSCU here and our follow-up investigation about sexual misconduct at UConn here. If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual misconduct on college campuses, reach out to our team: https://insideinvestigator.org/submit-a-tip/
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