University of Illinois College of Law. (Courtesy photo.)

A University of Illinois law professor who was found in 2017 to have acted inappropriately with female students for years won't be returning to the classroom this semester as expected.

Embattled law professor Jay Kesan, who just concluded a year-long unpaid leave of absence, will not teach cybersecurity law and policy and intellectual property transactions during the spring semester as scheduled, according to Illinois law Dean Vikram Amar, who informed students by email in late December.

Instead, Amar wrote that Kesan is on a "university sanctioned leave" and that other faculty will teach those two courses. The decision was first reported by The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois.

Reached Tuesday, associate chancellor Robin Neal Kaler called Kesan's leave "indefinite" but declined to comment further. It's unclear whether that leave was Kesan's decision or imposed by the university. Amar on Tuesday referred requests for clarification to Kaler, and Kesan did not respond to requests for comment.

The university in 2015 launched an investigation into Kesan's conduct after three women lodged complaints against him. That investigation concluded in 2017 that the law professor had acted inappropriately with female students—for example, rubbing a female student's thigh, inviting another to stay at his Chicago apartment, and asking invasive questions about a student's sex life—but that his actions were not extreme enough to violate the campus' sexual misconduct rules. He was required to undergo sexual harassment training.

The investigator's report stayed under wraps until 2018, when Northern Illinois' NPR affiliate WNIJ obtained it through an open records request. The response from students was swift. The law school's Student Bar Association called on Kesan to resign, writing in a letter that they were, "shocked, angered, and disappointed not only by Professor Kesan's horrible behavior but also by the muted response of the university administration."

Jay Kesan.

Ultimately, Kesan took a year of unpaid leave starting in January 2019, which concluded this month. He has been on the faculty of the law school since 1998 and remains listed as a faculty member on the law school's website.

Kesan is one of a number of legal academics who were found to have crossed the line with students or staff in recent years. Former University of California, Berkeley School of Law Dean Sujit Choudhry resigned in 2016 after he was sued for sexual harassment by his executive assistant. Up-and-coming legal academic Ian Samuel in May resigned his associate professor post at Indiana University Maurer School of Law—Bloomington, after the university launched a Title IX misconduct investigation the previous December. In an open letter to university provost Lauren Robel, Samuel wrote that he had taken to drinking in excess and "treating the people present in ways they didn't deserve."

Marquette University removed law professor Paul Secunda from the classroom in December 2018 amid allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a student. A university spokesman said Tuesday that Secunda "is not currently assigned to teaching duties."

And two law deans resigned in 2017 after women filed sexual harassment claims against them. Eric Dannenmaier left the deanship of Northern Illinois University College of Law in June of that year, while former Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law Dean Jeffrey Standen resigned that post in December.