Mathur v. Bd. Trustees S. Il. Univ

• Decision Date: 27 March 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98-3431,98-3431
• Citation: 207 F.3d 938
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2000) Iqbal Mathur, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University, et al., Defendants-Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 938

207 F.3d 938 (7th Cir. 2000)

Iqbal Mathur, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 98-3431

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Argued May 14, 1999

Decided March 27, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. No. 95 CV 04097--James L. Foreman, Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before Flaum, Easterbrook, and Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judges.

Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judge.

Iqbal Mathur convinced a jury that the Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University (SIU) retaliated against him for filing suit alleging discrimination on account of his race, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. sec.2000e-5 et seq., but the district court overturned that result when it granted judgment as a matter of law in favor of SIU after the verdict was returned. The judge did so not because of any overriding legal principle, but for a more conventional reason: he was persuaded that, as a theoretical matter, Mathur had not presented enough evidence of retaliatory motive to reach the jury. Mathur challenges the judgment in SIU's favor in this appeal. We conclude, on our de novo review of the court's decision, that this was a proper case for the jury, and we therefore reverse and remand.

I

Mathur is a person of East Indian origin. By all accounts, he has been for many years a successful and highly regarded member of the faculty at SIU. He joined SIU's College of Business Administration ("College") as a tenured professor in the College's Finance Department in 1977. For seventeen years (between 1979 and 1992) he served as the Department Chair. He stepped down in 1992 to accept a position as Interim Dean of the College. Mathur also put his name forward for consideration as permanent Dean.

He was not successful in that effort. Instead, the College selected Thomas Keon, who is white, for its new permanent Dean. Mathur believed that this decision was tainted by both racial and national origin discrimination, and he filed a charge to that effect with the EEOC on March 25, 1994. Nevertheless, in June 1994, SIU asked Mathur to continue as Interim Dean until Dean Keon assumed his new position in January 1995. Mathur declined and returned to his former position as Chair of the Finance Department.

On September 30, 1994, Mathur and Keon attended the College's annual "Dean's Reception." Their accounts of the event are quite different. Mathur testified that he and Keon chatted and that he advised Keon that he, too, had been a candidate for the deanship and he had filed a charge of discrimination against SIU. At that point, according to Mathur, Keon frowned, ceased speaking, and made it clear that the conversation was over. Keon claimed to have no recollection of this conversation. (The jury was obviously entitled to believe whichever man it chose.)

In early January 1995, Keon officially assumed the position of Dean. As Dean, he was in charge of the College's Executive Committee, which included himself, the Associate Dean, and the Chairs of each of the College's four departments- -including Mathur. The purpose of the Executive Committee is to deal with overall issues related to the College, such as teaching, research, service, and fund-raising. Later that month, Mathur received a right-to-sue letter from the EEOC. He did not mention the letter to Keon, nor did he say anything about an intention to file suit; he did, however, discuss his plans with other members of the College community.

On April 4, 1995, Keon called Mathur into his office and initiated a conversation, the substance of which is disputed. According to Mathur, Keon "informed me that what I was doing was not positive and it would reflect negatively on the College of Business. He did not want me in an administrative position in the College of Business, and he wanted me to resign." Mathur assumed Keon was talking about the lawsuit. Keon, however, maintains that he was talking about Mathur's performance as a member of the Executive Committee. In Keon's opinion, none of the department chairs were adequately participating in the Executive Committee meetings. They weren't "team players" and were interested only in what was good for their particular departments. It was time, Keon thought, to "clean house." Indeed, each of the chairs was out by the end of the academic year: in response to Keon's request, Management Department Chair R.E. Melcher submitted his resignation on April 4; Keon removed Mathur, who refused to resign, as Finance Department Chair on April 24; and the terms of the Marketing and Accounting Department Chairs, who were merely "acting" chairpersons, were allowed to expire.

Although no longer Department Chair, Mathur remained a tenured faculty member with the College. On July 7, 1995, Keon gave Mathur a formal performance evaluation, in which he rated Mathur's skills on a scale of 0 to 6 (with 6 being the most favorable). He gave Mathur's research skills a 6, his teaching skills a 5.5, and his administrative skills a 2.5.

On April 14, 1995, Mathur filed suit alleging that SIU discriminated against him on account of his race and national origin when it failed to hire him as Dean. On July 19, after Keon removed him as Department Chair, Mathur amended his complaint to include a retaliation claim. At the close of discovery, SIU moved for summary judgment. The district court granted SIU's motion with respect to the failure-to-hire claim but denied the motion with respect to the retaliation claim. The case went to trial, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of Mathur, awarding him $20,283.00 in back pay and $250,000 in compensatory damages. Mathur's success was short lived, however. Overturning the jury verdict, the district court granted SIU's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Mathur appeals only the latter ruling; he has not challenged the district court's dismissal of the failure-to-hire claim.

II

A. Judgment as a Matter of Law on Retaliation Claims

We review a trial court's grant or denial of judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50 de novo. See Emmel v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Chicago, 95 F.3d 627, 629 (7th Cir. 1996). Using the same standard as that applied by the district court, Willis v. Marion County Auditor's Office, 118 F.3d 542, 545 (7th Cir. 1997), we limit our inquiry to "whether the evidence presented, combined with all reasonable inferences permissibly drawn therefrom, is sufficient to support the verdict when viewed in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion is directed. . . . In other words, we are limited to assessing whether no rational jury could have found for the plaintiff." Emmel, 95 F.3d at 629- 30, quoting McNabola v. CTA, 10 F.3d 501, 513 (7th Cir. 1993); see also Cygnar v. City of Chicago, 865 F.2d 827, 834 (7th Cir. 1989). In doing so, "this court may not step in and substitute its view of the contested evidence for the jury's." Emmel, 95 F.3d at 634.

Title VII makes it unlawful for an employer to "discriminate against any of his employees . . . because he has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice . . . or because he has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding or hearing" under the statute. 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000e-3(a). In other words, it is unlawful for an employer to retaliate against an employee for exercising her rights under Title VII. "To establish a prima facie case of retaliation, an employee must show that (1) he engaged in statutorily protected expression; (2) he suffered an adverse action; and (3) there is a causal link between the protected expression and the adverse action." Johnson v. Zema Systems Corp., 170 F.3d 734, 746 (7th Cir. 1999), citing Eiland v. Trinity Hosp., 150 F.3d 747, 753 (7th Cir. 1998).

Although Mathur originally structured the proof of his case under both the "direct" and "indirect" methods, at this stage of the game those distinctions are no longer relevant. In reviewing the district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law, we do not need to march through the familiar steps set forth in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973); Diettrich v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 168 F.3d 961, 965 (7th Cir. 1999). Since the district court held a trial on the merits, we need only ask whether, viewing the evidence in its totality, Mathur provided sufficient evidence that a rational jury could have concluded that retaliation was a determining factor in Dean Keon's decision to remove him as Chair of the Finance Department. Willis, 118 F.3d at 545; see also Grizzle v. Travelers Health Network, Inc., 14 F.3d 261, 267 (5th Cir. 1994) ("[T]he ultimate issue is whether [ ] there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable finder of fact to conclude that the official reason for [plaintiff's] discharge was 'pretextual', and that the true reason therefore was retaliation for her complaints of [ ] discrimination."). We note in passing that the parties have devoted a considerable amount of unnecessary attention to the question whether the bulk of Mathur's evidence of discrimination is direct or circumstantial. At this point, it is a distinction without legal consequence.

At trial, Mathur offered the following evidence from which a rational jury could reasonably infer that Mathur's discrimination suit was the primary reason behind Dean Keon's decision to demote him. To begin, Mathur presented evidence that Keon knew about the discrimination suit. In September 1994, Mathur met Keon and told him about his EEOC charge; Mathur informed Keon because he felt it was important for Keon, as Dean, to know about the charges. Upon hearing about Mathur's charges, Keon frowned and cut their conversation short. Professor Robert Waldron testified that he saw Mathur and Keon ...