Harris v. Trs. of the Univ. of the Dist. of Columbia

• Decision Date: 25 September 2021
• Docket Number: Case No. 1:19-cv-02915 (TNM)
• Citation: 567 F.Supp.3d 131
• Parties: B. Michelle HARRIS, Plaintiff, v. TRUSTEES OF the UNIVERSITY OF the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

567 F.Supp.3d 131

B. Michelle HARRIS, Plaintiff,

v.TRUSTEES OF the UNIVERSITY OF the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants.

Case No. 1:19-cv-02915 (TNM)

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

Signed September 25, 2021

Eric Lee Siegel, Kalbian Hagerty LLP, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff B. Michelle Harris.

James Joseph Murphy, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C., Washington, DC, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

TREVOR N. McFADDEN, U.S.D.J.

This case concerns a long-running feud between a college professor and her dean. Dr. Michelle Harris sues her employer, the University of the District of Columbia ("UDC"), claiming that her boss repeatedly retaliated against her for speaking out about racial discrimination, financial mismanagement, and bureaucratic failures at the school. Defendants UDC and Dean Sabine O'Hara (collectively, "the University") deny the allegations and move for summary judgment.

Harris lacks any viable claims. Several are legally insufficient or conceded. And she otherwise fails to present evidence creating a triable issue on the retaliation that she allegedly faced for whistleblowing. The Court will therefore grant the University's motion.

I. BACKGROUND

UDC is a historically black public university in Washington, D.C. See Defs.’ Am. Statement of Undisputed Material Facts ("Defs.’ SUMF") ¶ 3, ECF No. 34.¹ Harris, an African American, began her career at UDC in 2006 as an Assistant Professor in the nutrition and dietetics program. Id. ¶¶ 1, 7, 17. Four years later, UDC founded its College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences ("CAUSES") as the University's landgrant college. Id. ¶ 9. CAUSES has two halves: the landgrant side—funded by U.S. Department of Agriculture ("USDA") grant money—and the academic side. Id. ¶¶ 10–11. UDC folded Harris's nutrition and dietetics program into CAUSES, and eventually moved it under the Department of Health, Nursing, and Nutrition ("HNN") on the academic side. Id. ¶¶ 23–24. Harris viewed herself as the "custodian" of the nutrition and dietetics program, id. ¶ 223, which was one of three disciplines in HNN, id. ¶ 52.

UDC appointed Sabine O'Hara as the Dean of CAUSES and Director of Landgrant Programs in March 2012. Id. ¶ 14. O'Hara is Caucasian and a U.S. citizen who immigrated here from Germany. Id. ¶ 2.

The relationship between O'Hara and Harris got off to a rocky start. Several months after O'Hara arrived, Harris wrote to the Secretary of the USDA on official UDC letterhead to report funding issues at the school. Id. ¶¶ 27, 30. The letter implored the Secretary to identify new funding sources for her students and requested a meeting on a litany of topics, including "structural issues" on campus. Pl.’s Mem. in Opp'n to Defs.’ Mot. for Summ. J. ("Pl.’s Opp'n") Ex. 12 at 2–4, ECF No. 36-12. O'Hara met with Harris and admonished her for bypassing proper UDC channels to contact USDA directly. Defs.’ SUMF ¶¶ 30–31. Harris recalls that in that meeting O'Hara said that Harris "lacked social intelligence"—a statement O'Hara denies making. Pl.’s SOMF at 11; Pl.’s Opp'n Ex. 7 at 15, ECF No. 36-7. Harris also claims O'Hara told her that "if an administrative or managerial position came up," she "would not get it." Pl.’s SOMF at 11.

Despite the rebuke, O'Hara recommended Harris for promotion to Associate Professor less than a year later. Defs.’ SUMF ¶ 33. In her memorandum in support of the promotion, O'Hara noted Harris's "active research agenda" despite "extraordinary demands" on her time. Pl.’s Opp'n Ex. 13 at 2, ECF No. 36-13. She also stated: "Dr. Harris understands that more of her time will have to be devoted to publishing her research results." Id.

Harris and O'Hara’s relationship deteriorated from that modest high point. Beginning in 2014, O'Hara reported Harris to Human Resources several times for what she viewed as "hostile or unprofessional" behavior. Defs.’ SUMF ¶ 39. One report followed an argument in which Harris told O'Hara not to treat her like a "lackey" and warned "this is not a plantation" before storming away. Pl.’s Opp'n Ex. 7 at 24–25, ECF No. 36-7; see also Pl.’s SOMF at 86. Harris, on the other hand, viewed O'Hara’s HR reports as a campaign of harassment. Defs.’ SUMF ¶ 40. And she claims that over the years O'Hara sometimes excluded her from meetings and exhibited dismissive behavior. See Pl.’s Opp'n at 47–50, ECF No. 36 (citing Pl.’s Opp'n Ex. 25 ¶¶ 8–10, ECF No. 36-25).

Harris accordingly filed an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint in June 2015 alleging racial discrimination. Defs.’ SUMF ¶ 253. O'Hara learned of the charge later that year—and no later than December 2015. Id. ¶¶ 255–58; see also Pl.’s Opp'n Ex. 21 at 5, ECF No. 36-21. The D.C. Office of Human Rights ultimately dismissed the complaint in 2017.²

Beyond these personal interactions, the two academics clashed over university management too. For several years, UDC directed landgrant faculty to teach some courses in Harris's program and in other academic disciplines in CAUSES. Defs.’ SUMF ¶ 225. Harris, who held various executive positions in the UDC faculty union, repeatedly referred to the use of non-regular faculty in her department as "union-busting."³ Id. ¶¶ 77, 226, 239. And she spoke out vociferously against this and other staffing practices. Id. ¶¶ 226–47. For example, at a UDC Board of Trustees meeting in December 2016, Harris questioned CAUSES's spending practices and how it used adjunct faculty. Id. ¶¶ 269–270. She also testified that non-tenure-track instructors were improperly "labeled as adjunct faculty." Id. ; Defs.’ SUMF Ex. 19 at 7–10, ECF No. 34-19.

According to Harris, she took her complaints directly to USDA personnel too. She approached a USDA evaluator in February 2017 when USDA representatives visited the school for a planned site visit. Pl.’s SOMF at 84–85. Harris recounted the school's "misappropriation" of federal funds and expressed concern that mismanagement would deplete resources dedicated to District residents. Id. ; see also Pl.’s Opp'n Ex. 9 at 24–29, ECF No. 36-9. The "alarmed" USDA evaluator shared that she might have to report the claims to USDA leadership. Pl.’s Opp'n Ex. 9 at 27, ECF No. 36-9. Harris alleges that O'Hara lingered nearby, "eavesdropping" on this two- or three-minute conversation. Id. at 25.

Tensions escalated later that summer when three professors in the nutrition and dietetics program abruptly left UDC, including Dr. Prema Ganganna, the HNN department chair. Defs.’ SUMF ¶ 48. This triggered "an urgent staffing situation." Id. O'Hara decided on a short-term solution: relying on visiting professors that year while searching for long-term replacements. Id. ¶ 49. O'Hara convened a faculty search committee and appointed a professor other than Harris as the representative from the nutrition and dietetics program. Id. ¶ 53. O'Hara had assigned Harris to serve as the chair or as a member of faculty search committees on multiple prior occasions. Id. ¶ 58.

Even with the stopgap hires, Harris had to teach extra courses during the 2017–18 academic year. Pl.’s Opp'n Ex. 8 ¶ 16, ECF No. 36-8. She claims that she protested the "teaching overload" to O'Hara, who refused to increase her compensation or lighten the burden through yet more hiring. Id. ¶ 17. O'Hara also declined to immediately appoint Harris as director of the didactic program in dietetics ("DPD"), a role vacated by Ganganna. Pl.’s Opp'n Ex. 7 at 103–08, ECF No. 36-7. O'Hara instead appointed a visiting professor, Nancy Chapman, to that role. Defs.’ SUMF ¶¶ 68–70. After Chapman's one-year visiting appointment ended, O'Hara appointed Harris as DPD Director in September 2018. Id. ¶ 71.

Harris's clashes with UDC administrators continued. In June 2018, Harris sent a memo to the chair of UDC's Board of Trustees to oppose a new Ph.D. program in Urban Leadership and Entrepreneurship as a waste of resources. Id. ¶ 273. That September, she testified at a meeting of the Board's Audit, Budget, and Finance Committee to question tuition, fees, services, and faculty salaries. Id. ¶¶ 273–76; see id. Ex. 19 at 18–21, ECF No. 34-19. Most recently, Harris testified before the D.C. Council in February 2019, when she criticized UDC's "equity imperative" and treatment of professors. Defs.’ SUMF ¶ 277–79.⁴

At the core of this dispute are Harris's annual evaluations. During this period, the Faculty Evaluation Process adhered to the procedures set forth in Article XV of the Seventh Master Agreement between UDC and its full-time faculty. Defs.’ SUMF ¶¶ 103, 106–16. Faculty received scores in teaching effectiveness, service, and scholarship. Id. ¶ 105. There were five possible scores: Distinguished (4.0), Outstanding (3.0), Meets Expectations (2.0), Needs Improvement (1.0), and Does Not Meet Professional Standards (0.0). Id. ¶ 114. A faculty member had to achieve certain high composite ratings—a weighted combination of all three categories—in consecutive years to be eligible for promotion. Id. ¶¶ 200, 202–03. Although each year a faculty member received independent reviews from her department chair, a committee of her peers, and the dean, the rating by the dean served as the definitive rating. Id. ¶ 201. A faculty member could appeal this final rating. Id. ¶ 109.

For the three academic years covering 2016–19, O'Hara gave Harris low ratings in "scholarship." Id. ¶¶ 149, 172; see Defs.’ SUMF Ex. 2 at 32–37, ECF No. 34-2 (including two "Improvement Needed" ratings and one "Does Not Meet Professional Standards"). These ratings kept Harris's composite rating below the promotion threshold. See Defs.’ SUMF ¶¶ 146, 162, 173, 200–03. And her composite ratings all three years were lower than her ratings from her peers and department chair. Id. ¶¶ 147, 163, 173.

The main sticking point was what Harris saw as O'Hara’s "narrow" definition of scholarship. Id. ¶ 194. O'Hara repeatedly emphasized publishing peer-reviewed articles. Id. ; see also Defs.’ SUMF Ex. 2 at 33–37, ECF No....