Chambers v. Wynne School Dist.

• Decision Date: 31 July 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-2270,89-2270
• Parties: 53 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 840, 54 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 40,186, 62 Ed. Law Rep. 73 Maxine D. CHAMBERS, Appellant, v. WYNNE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Leon Wiggington, individually and as Superintendent of Wynne School District, Darrell Smith, individually and as Principal of Wynne School District, James Pitchford, individually and as Principal of Wynne Intermediate School, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1214

909 F.2d 1214

53 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 840,

54 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 40,186, 62 Ed. Law Rep. 73

Maxine D. CHAMBERS, Appellant, v. WYNNE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Leon Wiggington, individually and as Superintendent of Wynne School District, Darrell Smith individually and as Principal of Wynne School District James Pitchford, individually and as Principal of Wynne Intermediate School, Appellees.

No. 89-2270.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted June 13, 1990.

Decided July 31, 1990.

P.A. Hollingsworth, Little Rock, Ark., for appellant.

W. Paul Blume, Little Rock, Ark., for appellees.

Before McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge, HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge.

Maxine Chambers, who is a black female and an elementary teacher in the Wynne School District ("District"), brought suit against the District, alleging that its failure to hire her as an elementary counselor constituted gender and race discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq. (1988)), and 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981, 1983 (1988). At the close of Chambers's case in chief, the district court ¹ ultimately dismissed the complaint with prejudice, holding that the plaintiff had failed to make a prima facie showing of discrimination. We affirm.

Chambers received her baccalaureate degree in 1966 from Paul Quinn College in Waco, Texas and her masters degree in elementary counseling in 1971 from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. She has been a teacher in the District since 1969.

In 1974 Chambers was offered a junior high counseling position by the District. She declined to accept this job, informing her principal that her graduate degree and expertise were in elementary counseling.

In order to obtain accreditation from the North Central Association, the District was required in 1979 to hire an additional elementary counselor. According to the District, all teachers, including Chambers, participated in a study as part of the accreditation process, during which they were apprised of the necessity to hire another counselor. This opening, however, was neither advertised in the local newspaper nor officially posted within the District. The plaintiff claims that she did not know that the job was available until it was given to a white female. The District concedes that Chambers was at least as qualified as, if not more qualified than, the hiree.

In 1983 new state education requirements mandated, among other things, that the District hire two additional counselors by June 1, 1987. Chambers acknowledges that she was informed at faculty meetings that new counselors would be hired to meet the state standards. Notwithstanding these discussions, the District neither advertised nor posted any new counseling positions. Chambers testified that she looked for announcements of new positions and anticipated that her new principal would inform her of any openings as her old principal had done in 1974. But the plaintiff made no attempt to inform school administrators that she was interested in a counseling position, and in 1984 the District filled one of the new openings with an individual who was white and the wife of one of the principals in the District. At the time of her selection, the hiree did not have her masters degree in counseling and was not certified in elementary counseling, although the District claims that she had previously begun to work towards certification.

After the 1984 hiring Chambers approached school administrators and told them of her interest in any counseling positions that might become available. According to the District, the administrators were neither aware that she had a masters degree in counseling nor knew of her interest in counseling until then. Also, according to the District, the superintendent informed Chambers that, in order to be considered for the next opening, she would have to obtain counseling certification.

The District had to hire an additional counselor by June 1, 1987 to satisfy the state education requirements. In 1986 Chambers, along with two white women, applied for this opening. One of the white applicants was hired. The reason given by the District for not hiring Chambers was that she had not completed the requirements to obtain certification, whereas the successful applicant had done so. According to the superintendent, the District had to submit a report to the state by October of 1986 on the status of its employee certification, and failure to have all personnel fully certified was to have resulted in dissolution and annexation of the District to a neighboring district that had complied with state standards.

Under the state education standards, Chambers had to pass the National Teacher Examination in elementary counseling before she could obtain certification in that area. She completed her work toward receiving certification in March of 1987 and obtained her certification in August of that year. In 1987 the plaintiff applied for a new high school counseling position in the District, but according to the District this position was withdrawn because of lack of funding.

After filing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Chambers filed her complaint in the instant case, alleging discrimination in the District's failure to hire her in either 1984 or 1986 as a counselor. Although she offered evidence regarding the 1979 and 1987 hirings as background evidence, Chambers did not contest these other hiring decisions. After the plaintiff presented her evidence in a non-jury trial the district court, as noted, dismissed her claim with prejudice, holding that she had not established a prima facie case of discrimination. The present appeal followed.

We will not reverse the district court's finding that no prima facie case of discrimination was established unless that conclusion was clearly erroneous. See, e.g., Sherpell v. Humnoke School Dist. No. 5, 874 F.2d 536, 539 (8th Cir.1989). As we stated in Shull v. Dain, Kalman & Quail, Inc., 561 F.2d 152 (8th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1086, 98 S.Ct. 1281, 55 L.Ed.2d 792 (1978),

it is not the function of an appellate court to try the case de novo, or to pass upon the credibility of witnesses or on the weight to be given to their testimony, and a finding is not clearly erroneous simply because a different result might have been reached had the case been tried originally to the appellate court.

Id. at 155.

In McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), the Supreme Court "described an appropriate model for a prima facie case [under Title VII] of racial discrimination." Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253 n. 6, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1094 n. 6, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981). Under this model the plaintiff must show

(i) that he belongs to a racial minority; (ii) that he applied and was qualified for a job for which the employer was seeking applicants; (iii) that, despite his qualifications, he was rejected; and (iv) that, after his rejection, the position remained open and the employer continued to seek applicants from persons of complainant's qualifications.

McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S.Ct. at 1824; see also Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253 n. 6, 101 S.Ct. at 1094 n. 6 (applying McDonnell Douglas model in Title VII gender discrimination lawsuit). The McDonnell Douglas test has been used to evaluate the plaintiff's prima facie showing of discrimination for claims under 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981 and 1983 as well. See, e.g., Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 2377-78, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989) (applying McDonnell Douglas in 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981 context); Oates v. District of Columbia, 824 F.2d 87, 91 (D.C.Cir.1987) (noting that in analyzing whether discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 has occurred, "courts generally have borrowed the analytical framework established by the Supreme Court for cases brought under Title VII").

The McDonnell Douglas model is not, however, always the appropriate standard for evaluating a plaintiff's prima facie showing of...