University administrators have figured out that the best way to get rid of someone is for misconduct (call it the Mike Leach Effect). It covers the university legally, especially if you can pressure the person into resigning (as with Kearney). And it actually makes for some good PR for the university - they come off looking like they care about protecting their students and holding coaches/faculty accountable. Of course, there has to be some kind of allegation for the university to work with, but with the proliferation of rules regarding conduct, and society's increasing sensitivity to such matters, it's almost impossible for any coach/professor to avoid any allegations/rumors indefinitely.
If they wanted to keep Kearney, they could have kept Kearney. Since they clearly didn't, this is the ideal way for them to get rid of a (very successful African-American female) coach.
Whether Kearney deserved to go or not has nothing to do with this.
It's increasingly the same in the academic portions of universities as well. I saw a well-published guy get denied tenure over "concerns regarding the appropriateness of his interactions with certain female students." The real reason? He'd pissed off the two most powerful people in the department ... both of whom who were married to former students/employees of theirs. But by ascribing their decision to concerns over conduct, it basically made their denial bulletproof in terms of any appeals, legal action, etc. (He's now a full prof at a better institution, so I think it worked out well for him.)