ISENALUMHE v. McDuffie
| Decision Date | 17 March 2010 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 06-CV-1076 (FB)(ALC). |
| Citation | 697 F. Supp.2d 367 |
| Parties | Professor Anthony ISENALUMHE and Professor Jean Gumbs, Plaintiffs, v. Professor Georgia McDUFFIE and Dr. Edison O. Jackson, President, Medgar Evers College, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
Anthony C. Ofodile, Esq., Brooklyn, NY, for the Plaintiffs.
Andrew M. Cuomo, Esq., Attorney General of the State of New York, by Steven Leon Banks, Esq., Assistant Attorney General, New York, NY, for the Defendants.
Plaintiffs, Anthony Isenalumhe ("Isenalumhe") and Jean Gumbs ("Gumbs"), are tenured nursing professors at Medgar Evers College ("MEC"), part of the City University of New York ("CUNY"). Proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, they allege that defendant Georgia McDuffie ("McDuffie") retaliated against them for exercising their First Amendment rights, and that defendant Edison O. Jackson ("Jackson") condoned McDuffie's actions. They seek compensatory and punitive damages, as well as an injunction prohibiting further retaliation.1
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56, defendants move for summary judgment. As explained below, the Court concludes that plaintiffs' suit is nothing more than an attempt—regrettably all too common—to dress an internecine feud in First Amendment garb; whatever the merits of the dispute, it is not one of constitutional magnitude. Accordingly, defendants' motion is granted.
Isenalumhe has been a professor at MEC since 1993, with tenure since 1999. Gumbs was hired as a professor in 1998 and received tenure in 2000. Jackson has been the president of MEC since 1989.
The genesis of this lawsuit was the hiring of McDuffie as an associate professor and chairperson of the Nursing Department in 2001. She was elevated to the rank of full professor later in 2001 and reappointed with tenure in 2004. Isenalumhe and Gumbs opposed McDuffie's appointment and took issue with her administration shortly after her arrival. Their discontent manifested itself in a series of statements, emails, memos and letters opposing McDuffie's actions.
In enumerating the list of complaints and their allegedly retaliatory consequences, plaintiffs' complaint takes a blunderbuss approach. In addition, the list is something of a moving target, with new allegations arising in the course of discovery and, most recently, in plaintiffs' affidavits opposing defendants' motion for summary judgment.
In such cases, oral argument provides much-needed focus and insures that the Court does not overlook matters that may take on new life in a motion for reconsideration or on appeal. Accordingly, the Court held oral argument on September 29, 2009, and took great pains to establish a binding, exhaustive list of plaintiffs' claims. See Tr. of Sept. 29, 2009, at 24 ( ); see United States Trust Co. v. Shapiro, 835 F.2d 1007 (2d Cir.1987) (). That list forms the basis for the following background, presented in the light most favorable to plaintiffs. See Dallas Aerospace, Inc. v. CIS Air Corp., 352 F.3d 775, 780 (2d Cir.2003) ().2
In 2002, Isenalumhe accused McDuffie of falsifying the results of the Nursing Department's elections for departmental and college-wide committees. The accusation was made at a department meeting at which most of the faculty was present. Shortly thereafter, Isenalumhe repeated his accusation in a letter to Jackson; MEC's Provost, Dominic Nwasike ("Nwasike"); and the grievance officer of CUNY's faculty union, Dr. John Flowers ("Flowers").
In the spring of 2003, McDuffie reassigned Isenalumhe's preferred courses, which he "had taught for years," Isenalumhe Aff. ¶ 11, to other faculty members with less seniority. That semester, McDuffie assigned Isenalumhe to teach only clinical sections, a course load that, according to Isenalumhe, was more befitting an adjunct than a full professor. See id. Isenalumhe complained about the assignment in a February 10, 2003 memo to McDuffie, with copies to Jackson, Nwasike and Dr. Hiroko Karan ("Karan"), the dean of the School of Science, Health and Technology. See Ofodile Affirmation, Ex. 22.
For the fall semester of 2003, McDuffie assigned Isenalumhe to teach a clinical course in medical-surgical nursing. Believing himself unqualified to teach the course, on July 9, 2003, Isenalumhe left McDuffie a phone message questioning the assignment; receiving no response, he wrote her a letter on August 11, 2003, urging her to reconsider her decision. Isenalumhe then repeated his concerns in (1) an August 26, 2003 letter to Jackson (with copies to McDuffie, Nwasike, Karan and Flowers), and (2) an October 14, 2003 letter to Jackson (with copies to McDuffie, Nwasike, Karan and Flowers, as well as CUNY Vice Chancellor, Dr. L. Mirrer ("Mirrer"), and the chairperson of the MEC chapter of the faculty union, Dr. E. Catapane ("Catapane")).
For the spring semester of 2004, McDuffie assigned one assistant instructor to Isenalumhe's 22-student clinical course; according to Isenalumhe, "State law/regulations" require an instructor for every 10 students. Isenalumhe Aff. ¶ 41. He complained orally to McDuffie, Catapane and Flowers.
The understaffing resulted in several student complaints. Isenalumhe contends that the deputy department chair, Helen Murray ("Murray"), encouraged the students to write "blasphemous" allegations against him. Isenalumhe Aff. ¶ 43. He further contends that Murray violated protocol by not first referring the students to him, and by allowing the students to submit their written complaints anonymously. Finally, he contends that McDuffie "spirited" the complaints to Jackson without first attempting to resolve them at lower levels, in violation of school practice. Isenalumhe orally complained about the handling of the complaints to Catapane and Flowers.
As a result of the complaints, McDuffie assigned Dr. Eileen McCarroll ("McCarroll") to conduct a peer evaluation of Isenalumhe. Isenalumhe avers that such evaluations are unheard of for tenured professors and, further, that the evaluation was carried out without prior notice to him and in a way that humiliated him in front of his students. Isenalumhe contends that Murray's handling of the student complaints and McCarroll's handling of the peer evaluation caused his students to lose respect for him and to become "unruly." Isenalumhe Aff. ¶ 45.
On May 29, 2004, Isenalumhe wrote a lengthy email to Flowers grieving the understaffing of his class, the handling of the student complaints and the peer evaluation. In the email, Isenalumhe claimed that he had been "the victim of systematic witch hunting, harassment and intimidation, perpetrated by the authorities of the Department of Nursing and the College." Ofodile Affirmation, Ex. 11. He asserted that he was "entitled to the performance of his duties in an atmosphere free of such contrived adversities." Id.3
For the fall semester of 2004, McDuffie once again assigned Isenalumhe to teach medical-surgical nursing, while assigning his preferred courses to faculty members with less seniority. In a May 29, 2004 email to McDuffie (with copies to Jackson, Nwasike and Karan), Isenalumhe asked to "be allowed to teach the courses he usually taught." Ofodile Affirmation, Ex. 24. In June 2004, he repeated his request to Karan in person. The medical-surgical course was eventually reassigned to someone else.
While serving on the department's Curriculum Committee in 2003, Gumbs accused McDuffie, in private, of falsely representing to the college-wide committee that the departmental committee had voted favorably on proposed curriculum changes. Gumbs, along with other faculty members, then complained orally to Karan.4
On January 11, 2005, Gumbs wrote to Nwasike (copying the acting registrar and the new Dean of the School of Science, Health and Technology, Dr. Moshin Patwary ("Patwary")) to complain that someone had, without her authorization, entered grades for one of her courses into MEC's computer system. Gumbs suspected McDuffie, the only other person who knew Gumbs's password to the system.
For the spring semester of 2005, Gumbs was assigned to a non-teaching, administrative position in MEC's Office of Research and Special Initiatives; she received a memorandum from Jackson informing her of the assignment. On February 1, 2005, Gumbs complained to Flowers, who then filed a formal grievance asserting that Gumbs's assignment violated CUNY's bylaws and its collective bargaining agreement with the faculty union. Gumbs eventually hired an attorney to pursue the grievance through the administrative process. Although the final result of the grievance proceeding is not clear from the record, counsel represented at oral argument that Gumbs returned to a teaching assignment. See Tr. at 15 ().5
Between 2003 and 2005, both Isenalumhe and Gumbs served on the Nursing Department's Personnel and Budget ("P & B") Committee. Throughout their respective terms on this committee, they complained numerous times to McDuffie that she was bypassing the committee and unilaterally hiring, in their opinion, less qualified candidates. Plaintiffs repeated their complaints to Nwasike, Catapane, Flowers and colleagues in the Nursing Department.
In September 2003, Isenalumhe told Nwasike that McDuffie had reported false committee votes...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Flyr v. City Univ. of N.Y., 09 Civ. 9159 (JGK)
...of concern to the academic community does not automatically translate into a 'matter of public concern.'" Isenalumhe v. McDuffie, 697 F. Supp. 2d 367, 379 n.8 (E.D.N.Y. 2010) (quoting Ezuma v. City Univ. of N.Y. ("Ezuma II"), 367 Fed. App'x 178, 179 (2d Cir. 2010) (summary order)); see also......