Betts v. RECTOR & VISITORS OF UNIVERSITY OF VA.

• Decision Date: 12 September 1996
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 96-0054-C.
• Parties: Robert W. BETTS, Plaintiff, v. RECTOR AND VISITORS OF the UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia

939 F. Supp. 461

Robert W. BETTS, Plaintiff, v. RECTOR AND VISITORS OF the UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, Defendants.

Civil Action No. 96-0054-C.

United States District Court, W.D. Virginia, Charlottesville Division.

September 12, 1996.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Dexter Brock Green, Charlottesville, VA, for plaintiff.

Richard Croswell Kast, University of Virginia, Office of the General Counsel, Charlottesville, VA, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

MICHAEL, Senior District Judge.

This matter comes to the court upon Plaintiff Robert W. Betts' motion for a preliminary injunction ordering Defendants Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia — effectively the University of Virginia ("University") — to admit plaintiff into the University Medical School's 1996 entering class (with courses commencing on August 19, 1996).¹ Plaintiff has filed this suit pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. ("ADA"), the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and Virginia state law. Plaintiff claims that the University violated the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, his constitutional rights of procedural and substantive due process under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the terms of an alleged contract between the defendants and plaintiff. For the reasons stated below, the court denies plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction.

I.

The parties largely agree on the facts, with minor exceptions. Plaintiff was accepted into the University of Virginia's Medical School pursuant to the Medical Academic Advancement Post-Baccalaureate Program ("MAAP"), designed for economically disadvantaged and minority students. MAAP guaranteed admission to the University's Medical School to selected applicants who, inter alia, completed the program and maintained a minimum GPA of 2.75 per semester, received no grade below a C, and met the requirement of "satisfactory performance" to "be judged by the faculty committee of the MAAP program." Pl.'s Compl., Exhibit 2. Plaintiff began the program in the summer of 1995, and continued in the program during the fall semester. He failed to maintain the requisite GPA (he attained a 2.223), and he received a grade below a C in physics (he received a D -). Nonetheless, the faculty committee decided to permit plaintiff to proceed under a modified set of requirements. The faculty committee notified plaintiff that if he accepted tutoring and submitted to testing for a learning disability, he would be permitted to continue, pending reevaluation of his performance by the faculty committee at the end of the academic year. Pl.'s Compl., Exhibit 4. Plaintiff agreed.

Pursuant to the agreement, plaintiff was examined by the University Learning Needs and Evaluation Center ("LNEC"), which issued a preliminary letter to plaintiff's professors on April 12, 1996, stating that plaintiff had "difficulties with short-term memory and reading speed." It recommended that plaintiff be given double time for all examinations. Pl.'s Compl., Exhibit 6. An official report that followed on June 27, 1996, did not diagnose plaintiff with a specific learning disability, but found that plaintiff "had high average verbal conceptual skills and average intellectual ability," but showed "significant weaknesses in particular patterns of abilities." LNEC concluded that plaintiff lacked "adequate strategies when information exceeded the storage capacity of his short term memory," and that he "demonstrated a pattern of uneven cognitive processing skills consistent with a mild learning disability." LNEC again recommended that plaintiff receive double time for all exams. Defs.'s Motion, Attachment Two.² Upon receiving the April 12, 1996 letter, the University immediately doubled the allotted time plaintiff was previously permitted on exams, and he took five exams with the enlarged time; on these five exams, plaintiff received grades in the A or B range. In the spring semester, however, plaintiff achieved only a 2.838 GPA, which gave him a cumulative GPA of 2.531 for the year. The other MAAP participants attained the following GPAs for, respectively, the spring and the year: 4.0, 3.4, 3.3, 3.5, 3.6, and 4.0; 3.9, 3.5, 3.2, 3.6, 3.6, and 3.8. On May 28, 1996, the faculty committee met and decided that plaintiff had failed to demonstrate that he was prepared to enter medical school and his offer of admission was rescinded. Plaintiff was informed that his "failure to meet the overall GPA standard of 2.75 for the academic year" was the reason for the decision of the faculty committee to rescind its offer of admission.³ Pl.'s Compl., Exhibit 7. Plaintiff appealed to the Dean of the Medical School Robert M. Carey (as he was told he could), and was apprised on June 10, 1996, that the faculty committee's decision would be upheld. Plaintiff, with his counsel, was given an additional opportunity to appear before Dean Carey, the Admissions Director Beth A. Bailey, and Associate Dean for Admissions Benjamin C. Sturgill. During that meeting (on August 6, 1996), plaintiff was offered yet another chance to enter into the Medical School (albeit not before the fall of 1997),⁴ on newly revised terms.⁵ Instead of accepting the offer, plaintiff filed this lawsuit on August 9, 1996, and filed his motion for a preliminary injunction on August 14, 1996 (upon which a hearing was conducted on August 15, 1996), seeking entry into the Medical School on August 19, 1996.⁶

Plaintiff requests that this court grant him declaratory relief stating that defendants have violated the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Due Process Clause, and that defendants have breached a contract between themselves and plaintiff. Plaintiff also seeks preliminary and permanent injunctive relief requiring defendants immediately to reinstate plaintiff into the 1996-1997 Medical School class and requiring defendants to reinstate plaintiff's financial aid, which he received as a MAAP participant. Finally, plaintiff asks for costs and attorney's fees pursuant to the ADA and 42 U.S.C. § 1988. The only issue before the court today, however, is whether preliminary injunctive relief is warranted in this case.

II.

Plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction is governed by the test articulated in Blackwelder Furniture Co. v. Seilig Manufacturing Co., 550 F.2d 189, 196 (4th Cir. 1977), pursuant to which the court must take into account four factors, the weight given to each to be determined by the strength of the other factors. First, the court must make a finding that plaintiff will suffer irreparable injury if the court declines to grant injunctive relief. After this determination has been made, the court must assess the likelihood of harm to the defendant if the court issues an injunction against him and then balance this harm against the injury the plaintiff will suffer if he is denied injunctive relief. Subsequently, the court must establish that the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits, or if the balance in the previous step clearly favors the plaintiff, the court need only satisfy itself that the plaintiff has raised substantial and serious questions on the merits. Finally, public interest must be considered in the analysis. Multi-Channel TV Cable Co. v. Charlottesville Quality Cable Operating Co., 22 F.3d 546, 551 (4th Cir.1994) (quoting Direx Israel, Ltd. v. Breakthrough Medical Corp., 952 F.2d 802, 812-13 (4th Cir.1991)). "Where serious issues are before the court, it is a sound idea to maintain the status quo ante litem...." Feller v. Brock, 802 F.2d 722, 727 (4th Cir.1986) (citing Blackwelder, 550 F.2d at 194-95). When the injunction that would alter the status quo is mandatory (as opposed to prohibitory), the district court should "sparingly exercise" its authority. Wetzel v. Edwards, 635 F.2d 283, 286 (4th Cir.1990). "Indeed, granting a preliminary injunction requires that a district court, acting on an incomplete record, order a party to act, or refrain from acting, in a certain way. `The danger of a mistake' in this setting `is substantial.'" Hughes Network Systems v. InterDigital Communications Corp., 17 F.3d 691, 693 (4th Cir.1994) (quoting American Hosp. Supply Corp. v. Hospital Prods., Ltd., 780 F.2d 589, 593 (7th Cir.1986)).

A.

The court is generally persuaded by the Second Circuit's conclusion that "ordinarily a one-year delay in obtaining admission to a graduate school for the purpose of pursuing professional studies, as distinguished from interruption or termination of attendance already in progress, is insufficient to warrant an injunction in the absence of other circumstances militating in favor of such relief." Doe v. New York University, 666 F.2d 761 (2d Cir.1981) (citations omitted). The court finds no extraordinary circumstances in this case, keeping in mind that "`the possibility that adequate compensatory or other corrective relief will be available at a later date, in the ordinary course of litigation, weighs heavily against a claim of irreparable harm.'" Hughes, 17 F.3d at 694 (quoting Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 90, 94 S.Ct. 937, 953, 39 L.Ed.2d 166 (1974) (internal quotations and citations omitted) (emphasis added)). Plaintiff urges that he will be irreparably injured because, apparently, the University is discontinuing MAAP after this academic year, and, consequently, he will not be able to apply to the University's Medical School through MAAP again. The University has made plaintiff an offer, however, which gives him an opportunity to enter into its Medical School with significantly relaxed requirements,⁷ hence, the discontinuation of MAAP compels no finding of irreparable injury. Even if the University had not made an offer to plaintiff, the court's conclusion would be no different; this is because if a subsequent decision on the merits revealed that plaintiff had been wrongly denied entry into the Medical School, the court could simply order his reinstatement. No...