Cal Assistant Basketball Coach Accused of Sexual Harassment Resigns

A UC Berkeley assistant men's basketball coach, who has been fighting efforts to fire him for violating the school’s sexual harassment policy, resigned suddenly on Thursday.

Yann Hufnagel's resignation comes despite pressing the university for an appeals review. But UC Berkeley confirmed that the appeals hearing that was set to conclude Friday would not go forward.

"The toxic environment at UC Berkeley has made it impossible for Mr. Hufnagel to rejoin the basketball team he loves, even if he is vindicated in full, as the facts would show. He needs to look out for the student-athletes he coached, as well as his own future. Earlier this morning and after much consideration, he decided it was time to move on," Mary McNamara, Hufnagel's attorney, wrote in a statement to KQED.

This week, Hufnagel's team, which also included crisis management PR firm Singer Associates, promised that new evidence it provided the university would prove a female sports reporter had fabricated her sexual harassment accusations.

The reporter had told UC Berkeley investigators that Hufnagel sent her unwanted texts and once trapped her in the garage of his apartment building.  Hufnagel admitted to trying to trick her into having sex that night, and the Title IX office moved to fire him for violating the school's sexual conduct code.

The university's Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination conducted a seven-month investigation into the reporter's allegations and told Hufnagel at the end of March that it intended to fire him.

Hufnagel is the eighth Cal employee to resign over such behavior in the last seven years.

UC Berkeley's Sexual Harassment Scandal

Hufnagel's resignation comes days after a trove of documents revealed 11 new sexual harassment cases at UC Berkeley. There are now 17 such cases that have been substantiated over the past seven years.

The release of the reports come as UC Berkeley faces a growing outcry over its handling of sexual harassment and misconduct on campus. It prompted University of California President Janet Napolitano to announce last month a new process for reviewing sexual harassment claims against administrators. A new system-wide committee would review and approve all proposed penalties for high-level administrators who violate sexual assault and harassment policies.

And just yesterday, Tyann Sorrell, the UC Berkeley executive assistant who filed a sexual harassment suit against her ex-boss, former law school dean Sujit Choudry, said Cal should automatically release the names of people found to have violated campus sexual harassment policies.

Don Clyde and the Associated Press contributed to this report.