Nichols v. Southern Illinois Univer.-Edwardsville

• Decision Date: 28 December 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-2688.,06-2688.
• Citation: 510 F.3d 772
• Parties: Derrick NICHOLS, Babatunde Owoseni, Daniel Smith, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY-EDWARDSVILLE, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

510 F.3d 772

Derrick NICHOLS, Babatunde Owoseni, Daniel Smith, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY-EDWARDSVILLE, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 06-2688.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued January 5, 2007.

Decided December 28, 2007.

John D. Lynn (argued), Denner & Lynn, St. Louis, MO, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Ian P. Cooper (argued), Tueth, Keeney, Cooper, Mohan & Jackstadt, St. Louis, MO, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before FLAUM, MANION, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

MANION, Circuit Judge.

Derrick Nichols, Babatunde Owoseni, Daniel Smith, and Aaron Watson, current and former officers of the Southern Illinois University Police Department, sued Southern Illinois University (the "University") alleging that it discriminated against them because of their race by disproportionally assigning them to work at its East St. Louis campus. Owoseni, Smith, and Nichols also alleged that the University denied them temporary upgrades to sergeant because of their race and retaliated against them for making complaints of racial discrimination. The University moved for summary judgment on all of the plaintiffs' claims, and the district court granted the University's motion. The plaintiffs appeal. We affirm.

I.

Derrick Nichols, Babatunde Owoseni, Daniel Smith, and Aaron Watson (collectively the "plaintiffs") are current and former officers of the University's police department (the "Department"). Nichols and Watson currently are employed by the University, while the State Universities Civil Service Merit Board (the "Merit Board") terminated Owoseni's and Smith's employment in September 2003. Each of the plaintiffs is black.

The University is a multi-campus public university with facilities in East St. Louis, Alton, and Edwardsville, Illinois. The Department is responsible for patrolling the University's East St. Louis and Edwardsville campuses. The smaller East St. Louis campus is located in a predominantly black residential area, while the larger Edwardsville campus is located in a predominantly white residential area. Because the East St. Louis campus is smaller, officers' duties at that campus tend to be less strenuous. According to the Department's policy, officers must be willing to work at either campus, and officers are stationed at a campus for a semester-long assignment. Regardless of an officer's campus assignment, all officers received the same pay, benefits, and opportunities for advancement.

The Department's command staff makes assignments to the two campuses with input from its sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and chief. First, the lieutenant in charge of the patrol division prepares the schedules. The captain supervising the division then must approve the schedules. The Department's chief is responsible for giving the final approval to the assignments.

Officers may request assignment to a particular campus, and all but one of the plaintiffs directly or indirectly requested assignments to the East St. Louis campus.¹ For example, from August 2002 through May 2003, Watson requested an assignment to the East St. Louis campus so that he could be closer to another college where he was finishing a degree. When there was a temporary manpower shortage, Watson agreed to work at the East St. Louis campus on July 16 and July 17, 2003, and on August 27, 2003, he authored a memorandum to his sergeant stating that he did not have a preference regarding his campus assignment. In late 2001, Smith also requested assignment to the East St. Louis campus from December 2001 through December 2002, and he was assigned to that campus from August through December 2002. Further, Owoseni requested to work with a sergeant who was primarily assigned to the East St. Louis campus. In addition to the plaintiffs, a number of white officers requested assignment to the East St. Louis campus and were assigned to that campus. The plaintiffs nonetheless allege that the Department disproportionally assigned them to the East St. Louis campus based on their race.

The plaintiffs also make allegations regarding the Department's promotion and upgrade practices. The University's collective bargaining act ("CBA") distinguishes between promotions and temporary upgrades. Promotions are permanent appointments to a higher position (e.g., officer to sergeant), which are governed by the State Universities Civil Service Act ("Civil Service Act"), 110 ILCS 70/0.01 et seq., and the CBA. Officers may only be promoted to sergeant if they pass qualifying examinations administered pursuant to the Civil Service Act and the CBA and are placed on a "register." None of the plaintiffs had passed all portions of the qualifying exam, and thus they were ineligible to be placed on the "register" for promotions. On the other hand, upgrades are not permanent and function to fill vacancies on an as-needed basis. Upgrades may last for one shift, or, under unusual circumstances, they may last as long as several months. Unlike promotions, the Department's management team determines which officers receive upgrades. All officers are eligible to receive upgrades, and at least Owoseni and Smith periodically received them.

In late 2002, two sergeant positions opened when one sergeant left the Department and another was called to active military duty. At that time, there were no sergeant candidates on the promotion register, i.e., none had passed both the written and oral examinations.² The Department thus looked for candidates for temporary upgrades. In October 2002, the Department upgraded Rich Delmore, who is white, to temporarily fill a sergeant vacancy at the Edwardsville campus. The Department's management team stated its belief that Delmore was the most qualified individual for the job due to his prior performance as an officer. During a Department meeting at which the upgrade decision was considered, the attendees lauded Delmore's method of report writing, his ability to interview, his punctuality, and his ability to represent the University. One month later, in November 2002, the Department temporarily upgraded Jim Royston, who also is white, to temporarily fill a sergeant vacancy at the East St. Louis campus. Prior to upgrading Royston, the Department held a meeting regarding potential candidates, and the attendees discussed Royston's communication skills, ability to supervise, decision-making and problem-solving skills, and his relationships with other members of the Department and the University, in particular those within the East St. Louis community. Captain Tony Bennett also testified that the management team believed that Delmore and Royston were the most qualified individuals for the job based on the skill they demonstrated as police officers, and that the decision was not based on race. Nichols, Owoseni, and Smith, all of whom were eligible for the upgrade but were not selected for it, responded by claiming that the University denied them the temporary upgrades to sergeant because of their race.

Later that month, on November 26, 2002, Owoseni, Smith, and Nichols met with Chief Richard Harrison and Captain John Oltmann to discuss their complaints regarding the Department's alleged discriminatory employment practices. During the meeting, Owoseni spoke on behalf of Smith, Nichols, and himself, and he made a number of unsubstantiated allegations against Chief Harrison and against the Department's command staff.³ A few weeks later, in mid-December 2002, Smith, Owoseni, and Nichols each wrote letters to the University's president, repeating the allegations that Owoseni made during the November 26, 2002, meeting, as well as adding other allegations. In particular, Owoseni alleged in his letter that Chief Harrison engaged in a cover-up to protect a University parking service agent who was his friend, an allegation later found to be meritless. In his letter, Owoseni further alleged that he was the only officer instructed to desist from making traffic stops on the streets of East St. Louis and that the instruction was racially motivated, despite the fact that he knew that all officers were orally instructed not to make such traffic stops. Smith alleged in his letter that one of the Department's sergeants had been indicted for criminal sexual assault and should have been dismissed by Chief Harrison, even though Smith knew when he wrote the letter that the sergeant had been acquitted of all state charges. Smith further alleged that "Chief Harrison promoted/ upgraded only his white long time friends," and that he "treated his white police friends favorably and rewarded them with promotions."

Around that same time, the University's director of its Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and the University's assistant director of its Department of Human Resources undertook an extensive investigation into the allegations against the Department. The University's general counsel responded to Owoseni's and Smith's letters to the University's president, advising them that they should submit all complaints to the University's director of its Department of Human Resources or its Office of Equal Employment Opportunity. All four of the plaintiffs subsequently submitted their complaints. The University's investigation culminated in a determination that Smith and Owoseni had committed misconduct warranting the filing of formal charges for discharge with the Merit Board.⁴

A Merit Board hearing officer held evidentiary hearings for Smith's discharge proceedings on June 13 and July 9, 2003, and a different Merit Board hearing officer held hearings for Owoseni's discharge proceedings on June 17 and July 23, 2003. The Merit Board, after rendering its findings of fact, issued its decision and order concluding that there was "just cause for discharge" for both Smith and Owoseni. The Merit Board's decision and order regarding Smith listed the following reasons for his discharge: (1) Smith's recurring gross insubordination and disobedience to management...