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  • Date:

    Davis v. Delta Coll. (E.D. Mich. Feb. 2, 2024)

    Order granting Defendants’ Motions for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former tenured professor of English at Delta College who is African American, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the College and its former president after the then-president cited low student evaluations in denying her application for promotion to full professor. Two years later, the new president re-evaluated plaintiff’s application and granted the promotion with retroactive back pay. Plaintiff subsequently resigned from the College to pursue a career in social work. In granting summary judgment to the defendants on her discrimination claim, the court held that plaintiff failed to show disparate treatment since her comparators all received higher student evaluations than she did. Her retaliation claim failed because her promotion denial occurred more than a year after she had delivered a unionization petition to the president.   

    Topics:

    Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation

  • Date:

    Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. The United States Mil. Acad. at W. Point (U.S. Feb. 2, 2024)

    Order denying Plaintiff’s Emergency Application for Injunction Pending Appeal. Plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., brought a Fifth Amendment claim against the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Department of Defense, and multiple officials, alleging that the use of racial classifications in West Point’s admissions process cannot satisfy strict scrutiny as considered and applied in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. The district court denied a preliminary injunction. In denying the application, the Supreme Court noted, “[t]he record before this Court is underdeveloped, and this order should not be construed as expressing any view on the merits of the constitutional question.”   

    Topics:

    Admissions | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Students

  • Date:

    Denton v. Bd. of Governors for the State Univ. Sys. of Fla. (N.D. Fla. Jan. 24, 2024)

    Order granting Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiffs, students at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), on behalf of themselves and a putative class of “all Black students at FAMU at any time during the 2021/2022 school year through the date of class certification,” brought Title VI and the Equal Protection claims against the University and the State of Florida, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief only, alleging both intentional discrimination and a failure to dismantle patterns of discrimination dating to Florida’s system of de jure segregation before Brown v. Board of Education. In granting defendants’ motion to dismiss, though the court noted differences in funding and graduation and retention rates, it held that plaintiffs’ alleged facts were insufficient to show that disparate State funding, including land-grant funding, and overlap or duplication of program offerings between FAMU and Florida’s other state universities were traceable to de jure segregation or intentional discrimination.

    Topics:

    Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Equal Protection | Race and National Origin Discrimination

  • Date:

    Yao v. Oakland Univ. (6th Cir. Jan. 19, 2024) (unpub.)

    Opinion affirming summary judgment in favor of the University. Plaintiff, a former tenure-track assistant professor of nursing at Oakland University who is of Chinese national origin, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University after it cited her lack of peer-reviewed publications in denying her tenure. In affirming summary judgment in favor of the University on her discrimination claim, the Sixth Circuit found that plaintiff was not similarly situated to her closest comparator because the comparator had one published article and one designated at the “revise and resubmit” stage, whereas plaintiff only had one co-authored article published. In affirming summary judgment in favor of the University on her retaliation claim, the Sixth Circuit noted that plaintiff filed the claim she asserted as protected activity a month after the University notified her that her employment would end.   

    Topics:

    Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Faculty & Staff | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation | Tenure

  • Date:

    De Piero v. Pa. State Univ. (E.D. Pa. Jan. 11, 2024)

    Memorandum Opinion granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former writing instructor at Penn State University’s Abington campus, brought discrimination and First Amendment retaliation claims against the University and multiple officials after he complained publicly about required antiracism and educational equity trainings, and then resigned when he was issued a performance expectations notice for disrupting another training. In dismissing plaintiff’s employment discrimination claim, the court held that reduced performance evaluations and the performance expectations notice were insufficient to support his claim of constructive discharge. Though the court noted that “[t]raining on concepts such as ‘white privilege,’ ‘white fragility,’ implicit bias, or critical race theory can contribute positively to nuanced, important considerations about how to form a healthy and inclusive working environment,” it permitted his hostile work environment claim to proceed, finding that his detailed assertions regarding multiple trainings he was allegedly required to attend in which race was discussed “with a constant drumbeat of essentialist, deterministic, and negative language” were sufficient to allege pervasive harassment. In dismissing his First Amendment retaliation claim, the court found that plaintiff’s challenges to the facilitators of the workshop for which he was issued a performance expectations notice were unprotected personal complaints rather than protected speech on matters of public concern.   

    Topics:

    Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Race and National Origin Discrimination

  • Date:

    Daywalker v. UTMB at Galveston (5th Cir. Jan. 9, 2024)

    Opinion affirming summary judgment in favor of the Defendant. Plaintiff, a former resident at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), brought sex and race discrimination claims and an FMLA retaliation claim against UTMB after she was placed on a remediation program for “lapses in professional behavior” in clinical documentation and timeliness and told she would need to repeat her third year when she returned from a four-month FMLA leave of absence. In affirming summary judgment in favor of UTMB on her failure-to-promote claim, the Fifth Circuit found that (1) plaintiff’s one asserted comparator had no issues with accuracy or timeliness and was not similarly situated and (2) she was unable to overcome the documented concerns of numerous faculty members to establish pretext. It further held that the “handful” of offensive statements, which she alleged were made “over the span of a few years” were insufficient to raise a question of hostile work environment or constructive discharge. In affirming summary judgment on her FMLA retaliation claim, the court found that she was unable to establish causation because the decision that she should repeat her third year was taken between when she requested a “leave of absence” and when her counsel requested that leave be converted to protected FMLA leave. The court also held that the magistrate judge did not err during discovery in ordering the redaction of identifying information from potential comparator evidence because medical residents are also students for the purposes of FERPA.

    Topics:

    Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) | Privacy & Transparency | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment

  • Date:

    Johnson v. Bd. of Supervisors of La. State Univ. & Agric. & Mech. Coll. (5th Cir. Jan. 8, 2024)

    Opinion affirming summary judgment in favor of the University. Plaintiff, a former administrative coordinator in the Division of Animal Care at Louisiana State University, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University, alleging that (1) one of the University’s veterinarians made various inappropriate comments leading up to an incident in which he slapped her on the buttocks and (2) the University retaliated against her after she reported this harassment by temporarily assigning her to office in a storage room. In affirming summary judgment in favor of the University with respect to the incident itself, the Fifth Circuit found that the University took prompt remedial action by separating the two, directing the veterinarian to have no contact with plaintiff, and opening an investigation eleven days later. The court also affirmed the finding that there was insufficient evidence the University had notice of on-going harassing behavior to sustain pre-incident harassment claims, noting that (1) when an intern reported feeling uncomfortable as a result of the veterinarian’s questions, the behavior stopped once the University moved the intern to a new location and (2) a faculty member who was aware of the veterinarian’s inappropriate comments was not plaintiff’s supervisor and did not have disciplinary authority over the veterinarian. Finally, the court affirmed dismissal of the retaliation claim, absent evidence that pretext animated the University’s decision to separate plaintiff from the veterinarian by relocating her office to the storage room. 

    Topics:

    Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment

  • Date:

    Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. The United States Mil. Acad. at W. Point (S.D. N.Y. Jan. 3, 2024)

    Opinion and Order denying Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., brought a Fifth Amendment claim against the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Department of Defense, and multiple officials, alleging that the use of racial classifications in West Point’s admissions process cannot satisfy strict scrutiny as considered and applied in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. In denying a preliminary injunction, the court declined plaintiff’s suggestion that no interest asserted by defendants could be constitutional under Harvard, finding that the “patchwork of information” plaintiff assembled was insufficient to warrant injunctive relief and instead created questions of fact regarding the military’s assertion that consideration of race “(1) fosters cohesion and lethality; (2) aids in recruitment of top talent; (3) increases retention; and (4) bolsters the Army’s legitimacy in the eyes of the nation and the world.” The court likewise held plaintiff had not shown that the alleged harm resulting from the admissions program is a constitutional deprivation. Finally, in finding that plaintiff had not shown that the balance of equities tips in its favor or that preliminary injunction is in the public interest, the court noted that an injunction would disrupt two admissions cycles and possibly require West Point to withdraw offered appointments.   

    Topics:

    Admissions | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Students

  • Date:

    Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. The United States Naval Acad. (D. Md. Dec. 20, 2023)

    Memorandum Opinion denying Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., brought a Fifth Amendment challenge against the United States Naval Academy and multiple officials, alleging that the Naval Academy’s race conscious admissions practices cannot survive strict scrutiny. In denying a preliminary injunction, the court held that the Naval Academy is due more deference than a public or private university, citing the explicit caveat for military academies in the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. Noting the objectives served by the military’s determination that “a diverse officer corps is critical to cohesion and lethality, to recruitment, to retention, and to the military’s legitimacy in the eyes of the nation and the world” differ from the interest in educational benefits approved in Grutter and rejected in Harvard, the court was unprepared to conclude that the Naval Academy’s use of race was incoherent, that Grutter’s purported 25-year time limit applied, or that the Naval Academy presumed stereotypically that there is “an inherent benefit in race qua race.” The court was also unpersuaded as this stage that the Naval Academy used race or ethnicity as a negative or that it had not sufficiently considered race-neutral alternatives. Given this, the court further found that plaintiff had not established the likelihood of irreparable harm or that the balance of equities or the public interest favored an injunction.   

    Topics:

    Admissions | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Students

  • Date:

    Edrich v. Dall. Coll. (N.D. Tex. Dec. 12, 2023)

    Memorandum Opinion and Order granting Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment.  Plaintiff, a former Executive Director of Human Resources at Brookhaven College, which was consolidated into Dallas College along with several other separately accredited colleges, brought discrimination and contract claims against Dallas College after she was reassigned to a new role during a transitional phase and then not hired for any of the new positions in the final phase of the consolidation.  In granting summary judgment to the College on her contract claims, the court held that plaintiff’s assertion that she had been demoted when the College reassigned her failed because her month-to-month employment contract referred to her only as an administrator and she continued to receive the same salary after her the reassignment.  In granting summary judgment to the College on her race and age discrimination claims, the court found that plaintiff failed to point to any evidence showing that the College’s assertion that it sought to hire the most qualified candidates was pretextual.   

    Topics:

    Age Discrimination | Contracts | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination

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