Former producer and sports personality Kiki Solano said sexual harassment drove her to leave her position at the Brigham Young University-owned television station.
Solano wrote in a Twitter post last week that “recent developments within the workplace” made her job at BYUtv intolerable.
“Within the organization, I began being singled out and sexualized to the point where I didn’t want to come to work,” she wrote.
Solano said she reported the harassment to human resources several times. She also said in the post that the university’s Title IX office “was made aware of the situation.” The HR department spoke to station managers, Solano said, but no action was taken.
“Essentially, I was told my only option to stay a full-time producer/reporter was to deal with it,” she wrote. “So I left.”
In a statement emailed to the Tribune on Wednesday, BYU acknowledged its human resources department had met several times with Solano about the restructuring within BYUtv’s marketing department. During that time, Solano reported “an incident that had occurred the previous year involving a comment made by another female employee,” according to the statement. Solano chose not to file a formal Title IX Or Equal Opportunity investigation, the statement noted. Yet, according to the statement, human resources confirmed the comment had been made and “quickly took corrective action.”
The department also worked with Solano to find solutions or other jobs, according to the statement.
In light of Solano’s post, BYU has offered to have her meet with the Title IX office and potentially “file a formal complaint, pursue any grievance procedures or access supportive measures.” The statement said that opportunity is standard practice for the university whenever it is “made aware of allegations not previously reported.”
BYUtv has not issued its own statement nor made a spokesperson available for comments.
Solano graduated from BYU in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in news media and broadcast journalism. In August of that year, she was named host of BYU Sports Nation Right Now, a social media branch of the station’s main sports program.
Solano has been pushing the boundaries for women at BYUtv. When she called a Cougars gymnastics match this spring, she became the first woman to do play-by-play for the station since Holly Rowe, now a reporter and color commentator for ESPN. Then, on April 26, she pulled together the first all-women’s team to produce a BYUtv SportsNation broadcast.
“There is a space for women in this industry,” she said in a pre-show interview. “And beyond that, I think this matters to everyone because it’s a statement that you can be a minority in your industry and your space and whatever you do, and your hard work and voice is valued. It matters.”
