Elam v. Board of Trustees of University of D.C.

• Decision Date: 18 December 2007
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 05-1557 (JDB).
• Parties: Joseph V. ELAM, Plaintiff, v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the UNIVERSITY OF the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

530 F.Supp.2d 4

Joseph V. ELAM, Plaintiff, v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the UNIVERSITY OF the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.

Civil Action No. 05-1557 (JDB).

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

December 18, 2007.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Joseph D. Gebhardt, Valencia R. Rainey, Gebhardt & Associates, LLP, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.

Carl James Schifferle, Office of the Corporation Counsel, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JOHN D. BATES, District Judge.

Plaintiff Joseph V. Elam is an Associate Professor of journalism at the University of the District of Columbia ("UDC"), a position and title that he has held since 1982. In September 2002, plaintiff applied for promotion to the rank of Full Professor. Two committees within UDC reviewed plaintiffs application and recommended him for promotion. Despite those endorsements, Dean Rachel Petty made an independent determination that plaintiff's achievements did not warrant the title of Full Professor, the highest rank awarded by the University. Consequently, she did not recommend plaintiff for promotion. After reviewing all of his materials, the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs concurred with Dean Petty's assessment and denied plaintiffs application for promotion. Plaintiff subsequently appealed to the President of the University, who agreed with his colleagues in the administration and denied plaintiffs appeal. Believing that he had been the victim of unlawful discrimination, plaintiff, a person of "Asian Indian" ethnicity, filed suit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia seeking relief under both the District of Columbia Human Rights Act ("DCHRA"), D.C.Code §§ 2-1401 et seq. (2001), and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The crux of plaintiffs complaint is that he was discriminated against on the basis of his ethnicity. He also claims that UDC created a hostile work environment. Defendant removed the case to this Court and has now moved for summary judgment in its favor. For the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant defendant's motion.

BACKGROUND

Although the parties disagree over what to make of them, the operative facts of this case are not seriously in dispute. Plaintiff first joined the faculty of Federal City College in 1971. Pl.'s Opp'n at 5. In 1977, Federal City College was merged with several other institutions to form what is now known as UDC. An alumnus of the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, where he earned his Master's degree in journalism in 1976, plaintiff was initially a "Media Relations Specialist" at the University before he became an Assistant Professor in 1976. Pl.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶¶ 1, 3. The parties disagree over the exact date, but since 1980 at the latest plaintiff has served as the "Journalism Program Coordinator" and he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 1982. Pl.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶ 3; Def.'s Stint. of Facts ¶¶ 2, 5. He has also been the only full-time faculty member of the journalism program — which is housed within UDC's Department of Mass Media, Visual and Performing Arts, Def.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶ 7 — since 1982. Pl.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶ 6. Although he initially enrolled in an English Ph.D degree program at Howard University, plaintiff did not complete the coursework required to earn that degree, and it is undisputed that he does not hold a Ph.D in journalism. Id. ¶ 4; Def.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶ 4.

In September 2002, plaintiff applied for promotion to Full Professor, setting off the chain of events that ultimately culminated in this litigation. The process for promotion review at UDC is multi-tiered. At the outset, when a member of the faculty applies for promotion, the appropriate Department Chair issues an initial recommendation on the application. In this case, Yvonne Carter — the Chair of the Department of Mass Media, Visual and Performing Arts — "strongly recommended" plaintiffs application for promotion. Def.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶ 11. Next, the application is passed along to the "Department Evaluation and Promotion Committee" ("Department Committee"), which consists of faculty from within the applicant's department. Id. ¶ 13. Here again, plaintiffs application was received favorably; of the four faculty members on the Committee, three "strongly recommended" plaintiff for promotion and one "recommended" him "but not strongly." Id. ¶¶ 14-15.

Moving along, the next step in the promotion procedure is review by the College Evaluation and Promotion Committee ("College Committee"). Id. ¶ 16. The College Committee consists of the Chairs of each Department Committee within the appropriate college,¹ and it consequently reviews the applications of each faculty member up for promotion from within that college. Id. ¶¶ 16-17. In addition to plaintiffs promotion portfolio, the eleven members of the College Committee reviewed seven other applications that year and ranked each within a numerical hierarchy. Def.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶ 18; Pl.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶ 19. Plaintiffs application was ranked second of eight and given a "strong recommendation." Def.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶ 19. Two other individuals — ranks # 1 and # 3, respectively — were "strongly recommended," one faculty member (rank # 4) was "recommended," and the remaining applicants (ranks # 5-8) were "not recommended" for promotion. Id. Ex. F.

After the College Committee issues its recommendation, the applications are then forwarded to, the Dean of the appropriate college for an independent assessment. In this case, Rachel Petty, Dean of the college of Arts and Sciences, performed that appraisal. Id. ¶¶ 20-21. After completing her review of the applications, Dean Petty concurred with the College Committee's recommendations to promote Professor Harmon-Martin (rank # 1) and Professor Brown (rank # 3). Def.'s Mot. Ex. G at 1. She also concurred with the College Committee's recommendations to promote Professor Ormond (rank # 4) and not to promote candidates ranked # 5-8 from the College of Arts and Sciences. Id. Significantly, however, she decided to swap the College Committee's respective ranks of plaintiff and Professor Ormond, for purposes of her recommendation. Id. at 1-2. After doing that, Dean Petty then "decided not to recommend plaintiffs promotion." Def.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶ 21. She did so, according to defendant, upon her determination that plaintiff had failed to "keep current in his field" and neglected to provide "leadership in curriculum review and development." Id. ¶ 23. In addition, she found plaintiffs scholarship lacking. Plaintiffs application, in her view, displayed a dearth of "peer-reviewed research [or] . . . writing awards or critical acclaim by other professional writers.'" Id. at 38. Moreover, plaintiff did not demonstrate that he had ever undertaken any "formal research in his discipline." Id. ¶ 40. Those two critical flaws convinced Dean Petty that plaintiff was not entitled to the rank of Full Professor, the highest academic position awarded by UDC.

After the appropriate Dean renders an opinion, applications are forwarded to the Vice President of the University, who reviews promotion applications from all of the constituent colleges at UDC. Def.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶ 44. In this instance, Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, examined plaintiffs application and concurred with Dean Petty's assessment that plaintiffs portfolio did not warrant promotion to the rank of Full Professor. Id. ¶¶ 45-47. Following that determination, plaintiff filed a written appeal with the President of the University, Dr. William Pollard. Id. ¶ 48. Dr. Pollard held an in-person meeting with plaintiff to discuss his application but subsequently decided not to promote plaintiff for substantially the same reasons cited by Dean Petty and Provost Reuben-Cooke. Id. ¶¶ 51-53.

Exasperated with UDC's promotion process, plaintiff filed this lawsuit. A native of Kerala, India, plaintiff believes that his promotion was denied due to his Asian Indian ethnicity. In support of this claim, plaintiff points out that all three decisionmakers who issued adverse recommendations and decisions regarding his promotion — Dean Petty, Provost Reuben-Cooke, and Dr. Pollard — are "African Americans (or African)." Pl.'s Opp'n at 2. So, too, were the three candidates who were in fact promoted during that same application cycle. Id. Plaintiff claims that he was the victim of "bias against an Asian Indian, non-African American professor," id. at 6, and his complaint seeks relief under the DCHRA (Count I) and § 1983 (Count IV) for unlawful race discrimination in an employment decision.²

In addition, plaintiff also raises a hostile work environment claim under the DCHRA (Count II), asserting that "UDC has subjected him to a continuous hostile work environment for nearly two decades." Id. at 1. In particular, he claims that he endured the following conditions: (1) he was denied a key to his department office for nearly ten years; (2) the journalism office was repeatedly relocated, often to undesirable locations and work-spaces without plaintiff's input; (3) he was pressured to change a student's grade from an "F" to a "C"; (4) he was "discriminatorily removed" from his position as Staff Editor of the University's newspaper; (5) the University denied him adequate training and technology to upgrade and improve the journalism program; and (6) former Provost Beverly Anderson attempted to disrupt plaintiff's "Living Legend Award program." See Pl.'s Opp'n at 27-33; Def.'s Stmt. of Facts ¶¶ 85-125.

Plaintiff has requested the following relief: retroactive promotion to the rank of Full Professor dating back to the 2004-05 academic year, full back pay and benefits for the intervening time period, and compensatory and punitive damages appropriate to his various asserted injuries. First Am. Compl. ¶ 44. Defendant has moved for summary judgment and that motion is now ripe for resolution.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

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