Dobbs-Weinstein v. Vanderbilt University

• Decision Date: 20 January 1998
• Docket Number: No. 3:95-0560.,3:95-0560.
• Citation: 1 F.Supp.2d 783
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee
• Parties: Idit DOBBS-WEINSTEIN v. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY.

1 F.Supp.2d 783

Idit DOBBS-WEINSTEIN v. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY.

No. 3:95-0560.

United States District Court, M.D. Tennessee, Nashville Division.

January 20, 1998.

Richard J. Braun, Gerard Thomas Nebel, Nashville, TN, for plaintiff.

John Shannon Bryant, William Ozier, John Claiborne Callison, Nashville, TN, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM

NIXON, Chief Judge.

Pending before the Court in the above-styled matter is Defendant Vanderbilt University's Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 35), to which Plaintiff Idit Dobbs-Weinstein filed a Response (Doc. No. 43). For the reasons outlined below, the Court grants the Motion and dismisses Plaintiff's state law claims.

I. Background

Plaintiff Dobbs-Weinstein alleges discrimination in employment on the basis of her gender and national origin in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and the Tennessee Human Rights Act, Tenn.Code Ann. § 4-21-101 et seq. Plaintiff also brings state claims for breach of contract and breach of covenant of good faith.¹ Plaintiff is an Israeli national, and also holds Canadian citizenship. In the Fall of 1987, she was appointed to the position of Assistant Professor of Philosophy, a tenure-track position.² Plaintiff's claims arise out of Vanderbilt University's decision to deny her tenure in the Spring of 1994.

After joining the faculty in 1987, Plaintiff's performance and her potential to qualify for tenure were reviewed at various intervals, in accordance with the Rules and Procedures for Appointments, Renewals, Promotions and Tenure in the College of Arts and Science ("College Rules," Mem.Supp.Mot.Summ.J., App. B). In order to be reappointed at each interval, the College Rules require approval by a majority of the tenured members of Plaintiff's department, in this case the Philosophy Department. At the end of her second year, in the spring of 1989, Plaintiff was reviewed and she was reappointed for an additional two years. At the end of Plaintiff's fourth year, in the spring of 1991, Plaintiff was again considered for reappointment, and again was approved, this time for a three-year extension. At the end of that three-year term, in the spring of 1994— Plaintiff's seventh year of appointment—the Department considered whether to grant Plaintiff the tenured position of Associate Professor.

The University's Faculty Manual ("Manual," Mem.Supp.Mot.Summ.J., App. A) outlines the criteria by which each renewal and reappointment decision are to be made. The Manual provides for three general areas of excellence which must be fulfilled:

For the award of tenure, Vanderbilt requires (1) excellence in research, scholarship, or creative expression in one's discipline and (2) a high level of effectiveness in teaching. From discipline to discipline, the form taken by a candidate's contribution will vary. But, in each case, Vanderbilt expects the level and quality of achievement in research, scholarship, or creative expression and teaching equivalent to that required for tenure in leading departments or schools of other major research universities. In addition, Vanderbilt expects satisfactory performance in the area of (3) service.

(Manual, Chapter 1, Section E.)

The standard for assessing factor (1), "research, scholarship, and creative expression," is included in the Manual:

Successful candidates for tenure at Vanderbilt must be active scientists, scholars, critics, or artists. By the time of tenure review, they must have completed and made available research, scholarship, criticism, or artistic production of such high quality as to gain favorable recognition within their discipline and at a national level. The works may be available through the publication of books and articles, the circulation of manuscripts intended for publication, lectures and presentations, exhibits or performances. Both past achievements and future promise, both the quantity and quality of completed work, determine one's eligibility for tenure.

(Manual, Chapter 1, Section E, Subsection 1.) The evaluation of a candidate's work includes a consideration of "at least three letters solicited by the Chair [of the department] from a list suggested by the candidate of at least six qualified reviewers outside the University, and at least three letters from colleagues chosen by the Chair in consultation with those department members whose fields are closest to those of the candidate." (College Rules, Section V, A, 4.)

The Manual also defines the standard for assessing factor (2), effectiveness in teaching:³

Candidates for tenure must accept as career obligations the dissemination of knowledge and the nurturing of a spirit of inquiry. To meet tenure standards in teaching, candidates must demonstrate a high level of effectiveness in any of the numerous forms that teaching takes and in any of the settings in which it occurs.

Command of the subject, clarity in communication, and sensitivity to the needs of students are indispensable assets of effective teachers. Candidates for tenure must possess both the skills required to transmit the contents of their disciplines and the capacity to motivate an active pursuit of new knowledge or insight. Such skills and capacities spring from the same qualities that lead to successful scholarly inquiry.

(Manual, Chapter 1, Section E, Subsection 2.) Under the College Rules, conclusions regarding teaching effectiveness are based on "[e]valuations of teaching by members of the department and by graduate and undergraduate students (see Section V, F), or evidence concerning the candidate's teaching in other institutions, along with comments by Vanderbilt students who have met and heard the candidate; ...." (College Rules, Section V, A, 4.) Section V, F of the College Rules provides that each department "shall develop a standard procedure for obtaining student evaluations of candidates for renewal and promotion" and those evaluations should "normally include course evaluations made in accordance with faculty legislation and evaluations prepared by graduate and undergraduate majors in the department." (College Rules, V, F.)

As noted above, the tenured members of the Philosophy Department voted to reappoint Plaintiff at both her two- and four-year reviews. However, at Plaintiff's four-year review, the voting members expressed some concern with Plaintiff's performance as to factors (1) and (2) — scholarly contribution and teaching performance.⁴ For example, "varying evaluations of her scholarship" were given: "Some find her written work to be not clearly focused, to be a bit scattered, to be in need of editorial assistance. Others do not dispute these observations, but nevertheless find her ideas interesting and important.... On the other hand, others suggested that her work is good only if judged by the standards appropriate to book reports." (Venable Aff., Ex. 1 at 4.) Although the Department reported that Plaintiff was considered by all to be an extremely effective teacher of and role model to graduate students, "[i]t was also universally acknowledged that Dobbs-Weinstein's teaching at the undergraduate level is below par; in fact, that it has been quite unacceptable and must improve if she is to be considered tenurable down the road." (Id. at 3.) Plaintiff's reappointment at her four-year review was ultimately approved by a six to three margin, with two abstentions. (Id. at 1.) A positive vote for tenure, as provided by the College Rules, indicated that the voter believed the candidate "may in due time qualify for tenure," while a negative vote denoted the opinion that the candidate "[was] very unlikely to qualify for tenure." (College Rules, Section IV, 5 & 6.) The author of the Department's report on this vote noted that "[he] would judge that one reasonable understanding of an abstention would be something like, `possible, but unlikely' (as distinguished from `very unlikely')." (Venable Aff., Ex. 1, at 2.)

Three years later, in the spring of 1994, the tenured members of the Department convened to decide whether to promote Plaintiff to the tenured position of Associate Professor. By a vote of five to four, tenure was approved. However, the concerns that were voiced at Plaintiff's four-year evaluation were again raised. For example, while it was noted that Plaintiff's book manuscript had recently been accepted by an academic press for publication, the departmental report on the vote reiterated that scholarship concerns persisted:

There is general agreement that by generally accepted standards Dobbs-Weinstein does not write as well as she might, though there is also general agreement that her recent writing ... is better than her earlier writing.... It is [also] clear that some of her faculty colleagues have found conversations with her mystifying while other colleagues ... have found conversations with her to be insightful and helpful.

Those who oppose tenure add the charge that, apart from the clarity issue, they do not find her presentation of materials always accurate....

(Venable Aff., Ex. 2 at 4-5.)

Discussed "at even greater length" by the voting members of the Department was Plaintiff's success at teaching. The voting members struggled with the "range" of the teaching requirement, disagreeing as to whether quality of teaching should be equivalent in both graduate and undergraduate contexts, or whether one category of instruction was more important than the other; indeed, the faculty noted that "[o]ur criteria refer to teaching, not to the teaching of undergraduates." (Venable Aff., Ex. 2 at 7.) While it was concluded that Plaintiff's teaching of graduate students was exceptional, "[a]t the undergraduate level the data [were] complex." (Id.) The panel went on:

Evaluation numbers vary. Her performance in freshman seminars has clearly improved ... and ... her Medieval Philosophy course is on an upswing. But the undergraduate reaction is mixed and complex. Is the clear success of her...