Abuelyaman v. Illinois State Univ.
| Decision Date | 13 December 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 10–2926.,10–2926. |
| Citation | 95 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 44357,114 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1,667 F.3d 800,276 Ed. Law Rep. 609 |
| Parties | Eltayeb ABUELYAMAN, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY, Defendant–Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Rima N. Kapitan (argued), Attorney, Kapitan Law Office, Ltd., Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.
Mary Ellen Welsh (argued), Attorney, Office of the Attorney General, Civil Appeals Division, Chicago, IL, for Defendant–Appellee.
Before RIPPLE, MANION, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.
Eltayeb Abuelyaman, an Arab Muslim, served as an associate professor at Illinois State University's School of Information Technology from 2001 to 2006. Abuelyaman's performance record was consistently sub-par, and he frequently sparred with policy decisions made by his supervisor. In March 2006, Abuelyaman was informed that his contract would not be renewed for the 2007–2008 school year. Abuelyaman filed suit, alleging that Illinois State refused to renew his contract based on his race, national origin, and religion, and in retaliation for several claimed instances of complaining about discrimination, all in violation of Title VII. The district court granted Illinois State summary judgment on Abuelyaman's discrimination claim and one of his retaliation theories, and then during trial granted Illinois State judgment as a matter of law on another one of his retaliation theories. After a jury found for Illinois State on Abuelyaman's one remaining retaliation theory, he appealed. Because we agree with the district court at every turn, we affirm.
We begin in the murky world of academic ranking and tenure systems. Illinois State has a three-tiered professor ranking system which, listed from the lowest rank to highest, is composed of assistant professors, associate professors, and full professors. Not surprisingly, Illinois State imposes increased performance standards as a professor ascends in rank. For example, an assistant professor, who is typically new to the academic arena, is not expected to have achieved the “regionally and nationally recognized accomplishments” (such as grant awards and published works) of a more experienced associate professor. Assistant professors are usually promoted to associate professors only after their fourth year of service, and even then such a promotion is ordinarily contingent on a recommendation for tenure.
In addition to its ranking system, Illinois State faculty members are classified as tenured, probationary tenure-track, or nontenure-track. A tenure-track professor must serve a six-year probationary period during which the professor is granted a series of one-year contracts. Employment beyond one year is not guaranteed; a professor's contract renewal is contingent on a recommendation from the school in which the professor teaches. Eventually, a professor's school must decide whether to grant a professor tenure; this decision must be made at least one year before that professor's probationary period expires. To be considered for tenure, a faculty member must hold the rank of either associate professor or full professor. Moreover, tenure is “not automatic”; the professor must maintain a level of “high quality professional performance” and demonstrate a compatibility with Illinois State's long-term goals.
Such competitive standards for both ranking and tenure call for a rigorous evaluation process. Accordingly, Illinois State maintains a comprehensive policy that requires individual schools and departments to evaluate professors in the three categories of teaching, scholarly productivity, and service. Individual schools and departments are given wide latitude, however, to adapt Illinois State's policy “to their own unique situations.” Schools set up committees to complete periodic faculty evaluations as well as to make recommendations on merit-based raises, tenure, promotion, and reappointment.
During Abuelyaman's employment with the Illinois State School of Information Technology (“IT School”), the IT School's Faculty Status Committee (“Status Committee”) conducted an annual review of each of the IT School's professors and distributed evaluations every January. The Status Committee was composed of the IT School director and three peer-elected professors who were elected to two-year terms. The Status Committee scored professors in the three categories mentioned above according to the following weighted formula: teaching comprised 50% of a professor's overall performance score; scholarly productivity comprised 40%; and service comprised the remaining 10%. Although this scoring system was the same for every professor regardless of rank or tenure status, the Status Committee took into account the different performance standards associated with a professor's rank when assigning that professor a score.
Abuelyaman, a Muslim of Sudanese, Yemeni, and Saudi Arabian descent, was hired by the IT School in Fall 2001 as a probationary, tenure-track associate professor. He was the only nontenured associate professor in the IT School. Abuelyaman received consistently low marks on his annual performance reviews. His first evaluation in January 2002 noted that, out of all his colleagues, he received the worst mark in service, tied for worst in teaching, and was ranked 11th of 15 in scholarly productivity. In November 2002 Abuelyaman's department chair expressed concern in a letter over “the quality and thoroughness of some of [Abuelyaman's] work.” Despite this warning, Abuelyaman's next three evaluations were similarly poor. The Status Committee's January 2005 evaluation noted that Abuelyaman's student evaluations were “weak,” his publication record left the Status Committee with “unanswered questions,” and he needed to become more involved in service. Though his performance was “satisfactory” overall, the Status Committee told him that it was not enough to ensure tenure or promotion. Abuelyaman improved slightly in the next year; his January 2006 evaluation ranked him as “Meritorious” in the areas of both teaching and scholarly productivity and “Effective” in service.1 Again, however, the Status Committee was left unimpressed by Abuelyaman's overall performance. It characterized Abuelyaman's scholarly productivity as “below the average for [IT School] faculty.” And although his teaching was “slightly above average,” Abuelyaman was nevertheless admonished to “work on improving [his] teaching activities still further, ... including the currency of [his] materials.” Finally, the Status Committee characterized his service as “low compared to other [IT School] faculty,” and encouraged him “as [it] did last year, ... to get more actively involved in this area.”
Despite receiving these consistently low evaluations, Abuelyaman argues that he, along with others, was the victim of discrimination within the IT School. The relevant instances of alleged discriminatory conduct involve IT School director Dr. Terry Dennis, who was appointed to that position in Fall 2004. At the time Dr. Dennis was appointed, the IT School had the worst teaching evaluations in the entire College of Applied Science and Technology. To remedy this shortcoming, soon after he was appointed IT School director Dr. Dennis changed the faculty evaluation process by instructing the Status Committee to accord greater weight to student evaluations. When Dr. Dennis announced this change in a faculty meeting, Abuelyaman immediately complained that foreign-born professors would be greatly disadvantaged because students were biased against them. Several other professors, including Drs. Eta, Zeta, and Delta, 2 voiced their agreement with Abuelyaman. Abuelyaman complained to Dr. Dennis at least two more times, once in a Spring 2005 faculty meeting and once in a private conversation. Ultimately, these complaints fell on deaf ears and student evaluations were accorded more weight by the Status Committee when it conducted annual evaluations.
Additionally, Abuelyaman participated in the investigation of two complaints filed with the Diversity Office. One complaint was filed by Dr. Zeta on January 17, 2006, after Dr. Dennis had informed Dr. Zeta approximately two months earlier that the Status Committee had voted not to reappoint him for the next school year. In his complaint, Dr. Zeta alleged that the Status Committee had discriminated against him in part because he twice supported Abuelyaman's complaints during faculty meetings that foreign-born professors were not fairly evaluated by students. Abuelyaman backed Dr. Zeta, and even voiced his concerns to Illinois State president Dr. Bow man that Dr. Zeta was the victim of discrimination.3 Abuelyaman also participated in an interview on February 21, 2006, as part of the Diversity Office's investigation into Dr. Zeta's complaint. During that interview, Abuelyaman confirmed Dr. Zeta's support for Abuelyaman's complaints about student evaluations, elaborated on why he believed those evaluations were unfair to foreign-born professors, and described an overarching “culture of unfairness” that plagued the IT School. The Diversity Office also interviewed Dr. Dennis (who, as IT School director, was a member of the Status Committee that had voted not to reappoint Dr. Zeta) and two other IT School professors. Ultimately, the Diversity Office found that Dr. Zeta was terminated based on a failure to improve his teaching performance and not because of his race or national origin.
The other complaint was filed by Dr. Delta in Fall 2005 and cited undue influence by Dr. Dennis in an IT School search committee's (“Search Committee”) efforts to locate a new telecommunications professor for the IT School. Dr. Delta complained that after the Search Committee had chosen a professor to recommend for appointment, Dr. Dennis asserted his authority as director of the IT School and pushed Search Committee...
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