Lever v. Northwestern University

• Decision Date: 09 November 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-3571,91-3571
• Parties: 60 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 446, 60 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 41,871, 78 Ed. Law Rep. 669 Janet LEVER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 552

979 F.2d 552

60 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 446,

60 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 41,871, 78 Ed. Law Rep. 669

Janet LEVER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 91-3571.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Oct. 23, 1992.

Decided Nov. 9, 1992.

Leonard L. Cavise, Chicago, Ill., argued, for plaintiff-appellant Janet Lever.

Lawrence I. Kipperman (argued), Patrick S. Casey, Sidley & Austin, Chicago, Ill., Martha P. Mandel, Evanston, Ill., for defendant-appellee Northwestern University.

Lawrence I. Kipperman, Patrick S. Casey, Sidley & Austin, Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees Raymond Mack and Rudolph Weingartner.

Gwendolyn Young Reams, Carolyn L. Wheeler, Donald R. Livingston, Susan Starr (argued), E.E.O.C. Office of Gen. Counsel, Washington, D.C., for amicus curiae E.E.O.C.

Ann Franke, Mark D. Laponsky, Washington, D.C., for amicus curiae American Ass'n of University Professors.

Before BAUER, Chief Judge, EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge, and WOOD, Jr., Senior Circuit Judge.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

Janet Lever, an assistant professor of sociology at Northwestern University, was considered for tenure during the 1979-80 academic year, her sixth with the University. Her department unanimously recommended promotion to associate professor, but the Committee on Promotions and Tenure of the College of Arts and Sciences fell one vote short of the two-thirds needed to recommend tenure. On May 5, 1980, Rudolph Weingartner, Dean of the College, wrote to Lever: "I am sorry that I must inform you that I shall not recommend to the Provost that you be promoted to the rank of associate professor. I therefore offer you a final year at Northwestern as assistant professor of sociology, terminating August 31, 1981."

Despite reviews and re-reviews, the Dean adhered to his decision, and on February 12, 1981, Provost Raymond Mack wrote Lever that "I do not feel that I am justified in reversing the decision of the Dean not to recommend your promotion to tenure at Northwestern University." On June 15, 1981, Lever filed with the EEOC a charge that Northwestern discriminated against her because she is female. Illinois is a "deferral" state, so Lever had 300 days from the discriminatory act to file a charge. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e). The charge is timely if measured from the Provost's letter, but not if measured from the Dean's. For eleven years, the parties have been locked in combat about which letter started the time. After receiving the report of magistrate judge Weisberg, 1991 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 15311, who held a two-day trial as a special master, the district judge concluded that the Dean's decision was definitive, with later steps merely appeals and requests for review. 1991 WL 206066, 1991 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 14353. Under Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U.S. 250, 101 S.Ct. 498, 66 L.Ed.2d 431 (1980), and Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U.S. 6, 102 S.Ct. 28, 70 L.Ed.2d 6 (1981), neither appeals nor a deferred final date of employment postpone the time within which the employee must make a charge.

Time starts to run with "the discriminatory act, not the point at which the consequences of the act become painful." Chardon, 454 U.S. at 8, 102 S.Ct. at 29 (emphasis in original). See also Cada v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 920 F.2d 446, 449-50 (7th Cir.1990). When the discriminatory act occurs, no less than whether a given act was discriminatory, is a question of fact. Cf. Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982); Mucha v. King, 792 F.2d 602 (7th Cir.1986). An appellate court's role in reviewing decisions reached after trial is correspondingly small. The question is not whether we would have agreed with the district judge's decision were we the triers of fact, but whether the district judge's decision is clearly erroneous. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a); Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573-76, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). Lever presents arguments that might have swayed the trier of fact but did not.

Northwestern's rules shroud the identity of the decisionmaker. Lever (joined by the EEOC and the American Association of University Professors as amici curiae ) contends that ambiguity necessitates generosity--that the court should choose the last of the plausible dates, to preserve the claims of persons who believe that they are victims of discrimination. Doubtless courts should consider the effects of uncertainty. Still, a legal rule starting the time on the latest possible date cuts against the grain of Ricks and other decisions we are bound to follow. Congress chose a short period of limitations for employment-discrimination cases, providing employers with a valuable entitlement offsetting the portions of Title VII that assist employees, and courts may not second-guess that decision. No rule of law says that employees win all close cases. Accordingly, we have a factual rather than a legal question, and in an appellate court factual ambiguity ensures affirmance: it means that the district judge's choice is not clearly erroneous. Lever's contention that all debatable questions about timeliness should be resolved in favor of the plaintiff is in the end either a plea to abandon the "clearly erroneous" standard when the district judge has ruled in favor of the employer or an expression of disagreement with Chardon and Ricks.

Did the Dean make a recommendation (as Lever believes) or a decision (as the district court concluded)? To put this differently, did the Dean recommend that Lever not be promoted, or did he decide not to recommend her promotion? His letter of May 5 reads more like a decision, an interpretation fortified by the offer of a terminal contract. That concrete act smacks of finality. You would expect such a contract and a decision to go together. On this understanding, the Dean had the power to conclude the matter adversely to a faculty member, but a final decision in favor of tenure required the approval of the Provost (and ultimately the Board of Trustees).

To be sure, one could believe that Northwestern gave the Dean only a power to recommend in either direction. Page 10 of the handbook for faculty in Northwestern's College of Arts and Sciences provided:

A decision by the Dean to recommend against the granting of tenure leads to an offer of a terminal year.... When the Dean sends the Provost a negative recommendation about a candidate, the Dean invites the candidate to a private meeting in order to discuss the reasons for the negative recommendation. If, after that meeting, the candidate writes to the Dean requesting a written statement of those reasons, the Dean writes such a statement. The Dean's recommendations are subject to review by the Provost. A candidate's appeal from a recommendation by the Dean is addressed to the University Faculty Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Appeals Panel. The procedure is outlined in the NU Faculty Handbook, pages 13-14.

Page 13 of the faculty handbook said that:

[T]he dean of a school may decide to recommend against reappointment, promotion or tenure for a faculty member.... [The faculty member] may, within six months from the date of initial notification, file an appeal with the University Faculty Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Appeals Panel. He must at the same time notify the Provost that he has filed such an appeal. Upon receiving this notification, the Provost will defer his own decision on the matter until he has received the recommendation of the University Faculty Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Appeals Panel.

One could read these passages as saying that the Dean does nothing but recommend, leaving the decision to the Provost. Yet one also could read them as giving the Dean's "negative recommendation" the status of a final decision (hence the terminal contract), subject only to an "appeal" to a committee and "review" by the Provost. Then the Dean's decision is final in the same sense as a judgment of a district court: it is self-effectuating and stands unless reversed, which can occur only on a request for review.

Testimony by the Dean and the Provost led the district court to conclude that the Dean's decision was indeed self-effectuating, as the award of the terminal contract implies. The Provost testified that he never saw the file unless the faculty member appealed. More, the district court concluded that Lever knew this to be so--which may explain why, when filing a charge with the EEOC, she characterized as the discriminatory decision not the Provost's letter of February 12, 1981, but the Dean's letter of January 15, 1981, reiterating his letter of May 5, 1980.

Lever falls back to an argument that the Dean rescinded his own decision in May 1980, making his letter of January 15, 1981, the "real" initial action. Both Lever and the Sociology Department protested the Dean's action of May 5. After...