Koszola v. Board of Educ., City of Chicago

Decision Date08 October 2004
Docket NumberNo. 03-2428.,03-2428.
Citation385 F.3d 1104
PartiesKathleen KOSZOLA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO, Defendant-Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Marvin E. Aspen, J.

Philip J. Schmidt (argued), Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Kathleen M. Gibbons, Cheryl J. Colston (argued), Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before RIPPLE, MANION, and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge.

Kathleen Koszola sued the Board of Education of the City of Chicago under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e, et seq., for refusing to hire her for a full-time teaching position because she is white. The Board moved for summary judgment at the close of discovery. Citing the dearth of facts in Koszola's submissions pursuant to Northern District of Illinois Local Rule 56.1, the district court granted the Board's motion. We affirm, as Koszola has provided no evidence showing that she may have suffered discrimination.

I

Koszola's rocky tenure with the Board began in 1994. While pursuing her bachelor's degree in teaching at Northeastern Illinois University, Koszola spent a semester as a student teacher at the Dirksen Elementary School, a Chicago public school. After she graduated in 1995, Koszola served as a substitute teacher for the Board at a number of public schools on the North Side of Chicago, located in Regions 1, 2, and 3 of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system. Koszola never served as a substitute teacher in any school located on Chicago's South Side, which is divided into Regions 4, 5, and 6. Between 1995 and 1997, Koszola applied for a number of full-time teaching positions with the CPS, but she limited her search to schools on the City's North and Northwest Sides. The Board never hired her for any of these positions.

In 1997, while she was serving as a substitute teacher at the Howe School, located on the City's West Side in Region 2, Koszola's car was vandalized. After that negative experience, she refused all assignments at Howe, despite the Board's policy requiring substitute teachers to accept all assignments. The Board's manager of substitute teacher assignments, Ursula Anderson, repeatedly attempted to contact Koszola after this incident, but she did not respond. Anderson then demoted Koszola. On April 28, 1997, Koszola sent a resignation letter to the Board, stating: "I refuse to work on the West or South Side. I want to work on the Northwest Side, but the Board of Education says I am the wrong color. I don't need this aggravation. I give up teaching. You win. Go hire all the blacks and foreigners to balance the employment. I am not going to endanger my life anymore." From August 1999 through June 2002, Koszola again applied unsuccessfully for CPS teaching positions in schools on the North and Northwest Sides.

Since 1980, the Board's faculty hiring and assignment process for the CPS has been governed by a federal consent decree arising from a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice alleging that the Board maintained a racially segregated school system in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The decree provides for "the establishment of the greatest practicable number of stably desegregated schools, considering all the circumstances in Chicago," and, to that end, calls for integration of both the student bodies and faculty of the CPS. With respect to faculty assignments, the decree requires that "[t]he Board will promptly implement a plan to assure that the assignment of full-time classroom teachers to schools will be made in such a manner that no school is identified as intended for students of a particular race." The decree dictates that "with respect to the full-time classroom teachers in each school faculty, the racial/ethnic composition and the proportion of experienced teachers will be plus and minus fifteen percent of the systemwide proportions of such teachers with respect to such characteristics, and the range of educational training will be substantially the same as exists in the system as a whole."

On April 17, 2001, Koszola filed a complaint against the Board in federal district court alleging racial discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e, et seq., and the Equal Protection Clause. Specifically, she alleged that her applications for full- time employment with the CPS had "continually been rejected or not considered by Defendant because she is Caucasian." After discovery closed, the Board successfully moved for summary judgment. This appeal followed.

II

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides that it "shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer... to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race...." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). To prevail on her race discrimination claim, Koszola must either show direct evidence of discriminatory motive or intent or rely on the indirect burden-shifting method outlined in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). The district court found that Koszola could not prevail under either approach. We review a district court's decision to grant summary judgment de novo. McDonald v. Vill. of Winnetka, 371 F.3d 992, 1001 (7th Cir.2004). In doing so, we construe all facts and draw all reasonable inferences from those facts in favor of the non-moving party. Id.

In reviewing Koszola's Title VII claim, the district court considered only those facts included in the parties' Local Rule 56.1 statements of material fact, a decision that Koszola challenges on appeal. Under the Local Rules of the Northern District of Illinois, a party filing a motion for summary judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 must serve and file "a statement of material facts as to which the moving party contends there is no genuine issue and that entitle the moving party to a judgment as a matter of law." N.D. Ill. Local R. 56.1(a)(3). Further, Local Rule 56.1(b)(3)(A) requires that the non-moving party file a reply, including "a response to each numbered paragraph in the moving party's statement, including, in the case of any disagreement, specific references to the affidavits, parts of the record, and other supporting materials relied upon." The reply must also include "any additional facts that require the denial of summary judgment," with appropriate references to the record. Id. at 56.1(b)(3)(B). Finally, Local Rule 56.1(b)(3)(B) provides that "[a]ll material facts set forth in the statement required of the moving party will be deemed to be admitted unless controverted by the statement of the opposing party." This court reviews the decision of a district court concerning compliance with local rules, such as Rule 56.1, only for an abuse of discretion. Ammons v. Aramark Uniform Servs., Inc., 368 F.3d 809, 817 (7th Cir.2004).

To establish the set of facts that were properly before the district court, a brief review of the procedural history of the case is in order. On July 11, 2002, the Board filed its Local Rule 56.1(a) Statement of Facts, listing 54 paragraphs of allegedly undisputed facts. Among these was Paragraph 29, which stated: "Koszola does not know the name, qualifications, date of assignment, or otherwise have any personal knowledge regarding any persons who were assigned to full-time positions which she sought with the Chicago Public Schools." On September 20, 2002, Koszola filed her Local Rule 56.1(b) response, in which she admitted that she "[did] not dispute these facts" in paragraphs 1-54 of the Board's filing. She then provided additional statements of fact, including Paragraph 57, which stated: "With respect to Defendant's 29, Plaintiff identifies the persons who were hired in her place at Oriole Park by a black female from Texas, Hitch by a black female from Georgia, Canty by an Hispanic male teacher, Sayre Academy by a black female by the name of Ms. Smith." At the Board's motion, the court struck a number of paragraphs from Koszola's response and accompanying affidavit, including Paragraph 57 on the ground that it "inherently contradicts facts in the Board's statement" that Koszola had admitted. In particular, her identification in Paragraph 57 of specific schools that had allegedly hired nonwhite teachers and the races of those hired contradicted her admission of the Board's Paragraph 29. The court then granted Koszola five days to resubmit her Local Rule 56.1(b) statement and supporting affidavit.

On November 20, 2002, Koszola submitted a revised Local Rule 56.1(b) statement and affidavit, which omitted the paragraphs stricken by the district court. Inexplicably, Koszola again admitted all the factual statements in the Board's original Local Rule 56.1(a) statement, including Paragraph 29. In addition, she replaced the text of Paragraph 57 in her response with the following: "In the fall of 1996 at a public school Plaintiff was substituting regularily (sic) the principal apologized to plaintiff for never interviewing plaintiff. She explained that she was forced to hire a minority and she told Plaintiff that Plaintiff was eight times better than the candidate she had. The principle (sic) nodded to a young black female, identifying her as the one she hired for the position." Koszola also attached an affidavit recounting several instances in which principals at certain Chicago public schools indicated that they would consider only minority candidates, but she did not include this information in her Rule 56.1(b) response.

In granting the Board's motion for summary judgment, the court explained that...

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