Two issues creeping in here. Firstly, Chris is right with regard to the use of STP (Shielded Twisted Pair, as opposed to Unshielded Twisted Pair) in that if you terminate the shield at the patch panel but the patch panel isn't grounded then you aren't providing a path for interference to flow to earth. The shielding would still sort-of work even if not grounded since it effectively encloses the signal conductors in a sheath of conducting material (Faraday cage). More effective if grounded though.
But what about UTP? Why ground a UTP patch panel if the metalwork of the panel has no electrical connection to any of the signal cores in the cable and there is no metallic sheath? The main answer, at least as far as the UK is concerned, is electrical safety within the cabinet. Here, the cabinet and all metalwork in it has to be independently grounded (just the panel fixing screws aren't considered enough). So you typically see little grounding lugs and short lengths of earth wire connecting panels, rack doors etc to the main frame of the rack.
Back to the static issue - early on in my working career I worked at a company where IT was just penetrating the operation. I worked in the Documentation team at one end of a long, second-floor corridor and the Secretarial girls were at the opposite end. We used to have to save documents to floppy (5.25 inch cardboard ones - remember them?) and take them down to Secretarial to get them printed. There was this one Secretary who we wouldn't allow to collect our work. We used to take it to her instead. Reason was that she could collect a perfectly good, and checked, floppy full of work from our section, carry it down to her section and stick it into her machine and it would be hopelessly corrupted. This was repeatable and consistent - 80% of the disks she carried she destroyed. Numerous theories abounded as to why, ranging from her shoes (we pesuaded her to try different types of footwear without improvement) to more exotic theories about unwise choices of material for her underwear (which were not investigated). To this day I still don't know how she did it.
