Casey's brother-in-law is Nobel Prize-winning physician Harold E. Varmus. Casey's father is former Massachusetts representative Joseph E. Casey. Casey has two adult daughters from his first marriage to novelist Jane Barnes: Nell Casey and Maud Casey. Maud Casey is a published author in her own right, with two well-reviewed novels and a collection of short stories to her credit. Nell Casey is the editor of the essay collection "Unholy Ghost" on depression and creativity, including essays by herself and her sister, and editor of a second essay collection "An Uncertain Inheritance" by contributors caring for family through illness and death. He also has two daughters, Clare and Julia, from his second marriage to artist and calligrapher Rosamond Casey. In 2012, John Casey married social media executive Roberts Browning Fray, whom he first met when she studied English at The University of Virginia in 1976. Casey was widowed on December 17, 2015, when Robin Fray Carey was killed in an automobile accident in Fauquier County, Virginia.
Title IX complaints
In November 2017, Casey was accused of sexually harassing Emma C. Eisenberg, a graduate of the University of Virginia's M.F.A. program. A second anonymous M.F.A. student filed an additional Title IX complaint at the same time. Several weeks later, a third student, Sharon Harrigan, accused Casey of sexual harassment and gender bias. On November 30, 2017, the university's Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights announced that Casey would not be teaching during the spring 2018 semester, nor would he be advising or mentoring students. In December 2018, a UVA investigation found sufficient evidence that Casey kissed and inappropriately touched a female undergraduate student in 2001. The investigator also found that, “nearly 30 years ago”, Casey made a sexual advance toward one of his female graduate students. Ultimately, the disciplinary panel determined that Casey was “unfit for continued teaching responsibilities” and made a unanimous recommendation to terminate his employment. However, Casey retired before the sanction could be carried out. In March 2019, Casey was found responsible for additional Title IX violations in a separate UVA investigation. Among the supported allegations, Casey used the word c--- while teaching, called a student a “sexy Irish pirate”, commented regularly on female students’ appearances, and showed up uninvited to a female student's house and “was overly critical and hostile to her when she rebuffed him”. The panel recommended that Casey be permanently banned from UVA property and made ineligible for paid or unpaid UVA employment.
