Mitchell v. Univ. of La. Sys., CIVIL ACTION NO. 13-820-JWD-RLB

154 F.Supp.3d 364

Melinda Mitchell

v.University of Louisiana System, University of Louisiana at Monroe

CIVIL ACTION NO. 13-820-JWD-RLB

United States District Court, M.D. Louisiana.

Signed December 30, 2015

Jill L. Craft, Crystal Lafleur, Natasha Leigh George, Jill L. Craft, Attorney at Law, LLC, Baton Rouge, LA, for Melinda Mitchell.

Edmond Wade Shows, Jeffrey K. Cody, Mary E. Roper, Winston G. Decuir, Jr., Amy L. McInnis, Shows, Cali & Walsh, LLP, Baton Rouge, LA, for University of Louisiana System and University of Louisiana at Monroe.

RULING AND ORDER

JUDGE JOHN W. deGRAVELLES, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, MIDDLE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

This matter comes before the Court on the Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 60) filed by Defendant, University of Louisiana System. Plaintiff Melinda Mitchell opposes the motion. (Doc. 75.) Oral argument is not necessary. Having carefully considered the law, facts in the record, and arguments of the parties, the Defendant's motion is granted in part and denied in part.

I. Introduction

Plaintiff Melinda Mitchell is currently an employee of the Defendant University of Louisiana System at the University of Louisiana Monroe (“ULM”). She was at all times relevant to this suit. She is a 55 year-old African-American. Plaintiff brings claims of discrimination on the basis of age under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. (“ADEA”); of discrimination on the basis of race and gender under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (“Title VII”); of retaliation under the ADEA; and of reprisal under the Louisiana Whistleblower Act, La. Rev. Stat. § 23:967.

In short, as to the discrimination claims, Plaintiff was an employee at ULM in the University Planning and Analysis Office (“UPA Office”). When the Executive Director of the UPA Office resigned, she sought the position. Defendant instead hired Rusem Hemed, a 27 year old white male.

Plaintiff complains she was discriminated against because of her age, race, and gender. Defendant responds that she was unqualified because she lacked a graduate degree and that it wanted to hire a different kind of candidate to suit the UPA Office's new function.

The Court finds that genuine issues of material fact preclude summary judgment on the age discrimination claim. A reasonable juror could conclude that Defendant's justifications were pretexts for discrimination. Specifically, construing the evidence in a light most favorable to the Plaintiff, a reasonable juror could conclude that ULM changed the qualifications for the position to exclude the Plaintiff and that ULM's Executive Vice President made a discriminatory remark evidencing discrimination.

However, the claims of discrimination based on gender and race are dismissed. As to the disparate treatment claim, Plaintiff has failed to bring forward competent summary judgment evidence to show pretext. Even if the Court considered the Plaintiff's incompetent evidence, no reasonable juror would find racial or sexual discrimination. Accordingly, these claims are dismissed with prejudice.

As to the disparate impact claim, Plaintiff has failed to exhaust her remedies. Her EEOC charge facially alleged disparate treatment, and it identified no neutral employment policy. As a result, this claim is dismissed without prejudice.

Plaintiff also asserts claims of retaliation under the ADEA. First, she claims that Hemed locked his personal office door, which kept her from equipment important to her job; asked her for a list of job duties and made inquiries about her job; and carbon-copied (“CC'ed”) the Vice-President of ULM on one of these inquiries. Second, Plaintiff claims that she was effectively demoted by being transferred to the Computing Center, where she was given little to nothing to do and was required to perform menial tasks.

The first set of retaliatory acts are dismissed. Each of these claims are petty slights and minor annoyances, and no reasonable juror would conclude that these actions would dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination. These claims are consequently dismissed with prejudice.

However, the second set—transfer to the Computing Center—survives. Contrary to Defendant's assertion, Plaintiff has exhausted administrative remedies on this claim; there is a proper charge of race and age discrimination before the Court, so the Court has ancillary jurisdiction over the retaliation claim. Further, despite inconsistencies in Plaintiff's account, her evidence (including her sworn testimony and audio recording) creates genuine issue of material fact that this was not a lateral transfer but was instead a de facto demotion that would dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.

Finally, the Court denies summary judgment as to Plaintiff's reprisal claim under La. Rev. Stat. § 23:967. Louisiana law looks to federal law for its retaliation and discrimination claims. Because there are issues of fact on the ADEA disparate treatment and retaliation claims, summary judgment is inappropriate for the state law claims.

Accordingly, Defendant's motion for summary judgment is granted in part and denied in part. The ADEA claims of age discrimination for failure to promote and of retaliation for the transfer to the Computing Center survive. The state law reprisal claim also survives. However, the Title VII claims of disparate treatment are dismissed with prejudice, and the Title VII claim of disparate impact is dismissed without prejudice. Further, the retaliation claims related to locking the office door, asking about the job and duties, and CC'ing the Vice President are dismissed with prejudice.

II. Factual Background¹

A. Plaintiff's Time in the UPA Office

Plaintiff worked for ULM in the early 1990s for three years, and she rejoined it on January 7, 2008. (Docs. 75-2 at 4, 60-2 at 1, and 75-1 at 1.) On that day, she began working as an Institutional Research Programmer/Data Analyst within the UPA Office. (Docs. 60-2 at 1, 75-1 at 1.) According to Dr. Stephen Richters, Executive Vice President of ULM, the UPA Office traditionally performed four functions:

1) Generating and submitting external reports that are required by a number of federal and state entities, each of which require specific reports of all universities;

2) Handling internal data requests received from deans, faculty, and administration;

3) Keeping a “fact book” which was a collection of information about the university, with the intention to publish sufficient data and therefore minimize requests that could be simply answered by accessing the data in the fact book; and

4) Answering any ad hoc requests from the president or the staff.

(Doc. 60-3 at 1-2.) At the time of her hire, Mitchell reported to the Executive Director for University Planning and Analysis, who was Robin Logan from 2008 to 2009 and Justin Roy from 2009 to November 2012. (Doc. 63 at 11-13.)

Concerning Plaintiff's specific duties at UPA, Plaintiff stated in her declaration that:

I served as a liaison between the computing center and administrative offices who deal with university information, maintaining the local records retention plan within the office, collecting, compiling and analyzing data, researching computing and composing reports, worksheets, and graphs. I assisted with the development, updating and streamlining of office reporting procedures. I also assisted in completion of surveys and statistical reports requested by campus departments, and state and other agencies.

(Doc. 75-2 at 280.) As will be discussed below, Plaintiff also claims that she was acting Executive Director from November 2012 to January 2013.

B. Vacancy at the Executive Director Position and Minimum Qualifications

In November 2012, Executive Director Justin Roy resigned from his employment with Defendant. (Docs. 60-2 at 2, 75-1 at 2.) At the time of his resignation, the Executive Director position reported directly to Dr. Richters. (Id. )

Dr. Richters testified via affidavit:

[A]s early as in 2010 and 2011 ... the university's need for data driven decision making in marketing, recruiting, and other areas suggested that UPA be tasked with analyzing data in addition to its traditional reporting of data. In order to accomplish this, some of the data reporting would need to be reassigned to another area.

... [W]hen ... Roy resigned in November 2012, [the] administration made a determination to complete the changeover and to focus that department on data mining and predictive analysis, with the expectations that the department would no longer handle internal reporting and that the university “fact book” would be phased out.

... [T]his shift in the focus of the UPA office had a significant impact in setting the job qualifications for the Executive Director position in replacing Justin Roy in late 2012, specifically that the new Executive Director would be expected to do data modeling and predictive analysis, do cross-checks of data production, and have a master's degree. [Dr. Richters] was looking to hire a completely different type of candidate than the type that the university had previously hired before.

(Doc. 60-3 at 2.)

On or about November 26, 2012, Defendant posted an advertisement for the Executive Director position. (Id. at 2-3) According to the Defendant, one of the minimum qualifications for the Executive Director position in 2012 was a graduate degree. (Def. Ex. H, Doc. 63-1 at 79.)

While Plaintiff admits that she does not possess a Master's degree (Doc. 75-1 at 3), she (1) asserts that she ran the department as “Interim Director” (Id. ) and (2) denies that a graduate degree was a minimum qualification. (Id. at 2)

In support of the former, Plaintiff argues that, “[i]n November 2012, Ms. Mitchell served as the Interim Director of the University Planning and Analysis Office until January 2012, when Ruslan Hemed, with no seniority or experience, at age 27, was hired as the Director of the University...