Cases & Developments

Order granting Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment.  Plaintiff is a tenured professor and former vice president of research at Arizona State University who was hired in the administrative role to increase research funding.  She brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University and her former supervisor after her administrative contract was not renewed due to a downturn in funding proposals and complaints that she had a negative management style.  Plaintiff alleged that she raised concerns that her supervisor created a culture of fear and intimidation among female employees and engaged in gender discrimination.  Plaintiff’s discrimination claims failed because (1) vague assertions that her supervisor also had complaints about his management style that did not result in his demotion did not establish him as an adequate comparator, and (2) criticisms of the performance metrics the University used in evaluating her development of funding proposals did not show that the use of those metrics was pretextual.  Finally, the court rejected her retaliation claim since it found that while her opposition to alleged gender discrimination was protected activity, she failed to identify evidence that her supervisor was aware of that activity.