Cases & Developments

Opinion affirming summary judgment in favor of the University.  Plaintiff, a former administrator at the University of Holy Cross who is white, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University after he was not selected for an interview for a vacant faculty position and then terminated for insubordination when he refused to attend a scheduled committee meeting.  In affirming summary judgment in favor of the University, the Court of Appeals of Louisiana held that plaintiff’s disparate impact claim failed because (1) he failed to identify a specific policy or employment practice at issue in his challenge and (2) three of the four candidates who were selected for interviews were also white.  In holding that his retaliation claim also failed, the court found that plaintiff’s email refusing to attend a required meeting out of concern that he “would say something [he] would later regret” broke the causal link between his discrimination complaint and subsequent termination.   

Opinion affirming summary judgment in favor of the defendants.  Plaintiffs, two former tenure-track professors at Bloomsburg University who are married and originally from India, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University and multiple officials after the University, citing poor student evaluations and lack of progress in securing external research funding, denied them tenure and declined to renew their contracts.  Plaintiffs alleged that the University did not provide promised relocation costs, changed their teaching assignments, and retaliated against them for filing complaints and reporting alleged inaccuracies in reported graduation rates.  They also alleged that offensive comments created a hostile work environment.  In affirming summary judgment in favor of the defendants, the Third Circuit held that plaintiffs’ discrimination claims failed (1) because they identified no similarly situated comparator who was treated differently and (2) because they did not show that the University’s concerns about evaluations and research were pretextual.  The court also held that the offensive comments plaintiffs cited were too isolated to affect a condition of employment.  Their retaliation claims similarly failed both (1) because the temporal proximity between their EEOC charges and their nonrenewal was insufficient to suggest causation and (2) because they were unable to demonstrate pretext.    

Order denying Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment.  Plaintiff, a former tenure-track assistant professor at Delta State University who is of Iranian national origin, brought discrimination, retaliation, and harassment claims against the University after (1) officials, citing poor student evaluations, allegedly pressured him to resign rather than accept a notice of nonrenewal and a terminal year and (2) his Department Chair, who is Turkish, replaced him with a new instructor who is also Turkish.  In permitting his discrimination claim to proceed, the court found allegations of hostile treatment from the Department Chair, together with evidence that the Chair was using Instagram prior to plaintiff’s termination to encourage the eventual replacement to apply for the position, sufficient to raise triable questions for a jury.  The court similarly found the temporal proximity between plaintiff’s discrimination complaints to HR and alleged efforts to hasten his departure sufficient to raise material questions as to retaliation.  Finally, the court found evidence that the chair denied plaintiff teaching materials, treated him uncivilly in public settings, and placed him on a performance improvement plan sufficient to raise triable questions of hostile work environment.