Qamhiyah v. Iowa State University of Science

• Decision Date: 01 June 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-2548.,08-2548.
• Parties: Abir QAMHIYAH, Appellant, v. IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; Iowa Board of Regents, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

566 F.3d 733

Abir QAMHIYAH, Appellant, v. IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; Iowa Board of Regents, Appellees.

No. 08-2548.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: December 19, 2008.

Filed: June 1, 2009.

Ann Marie Holden-Kendall, argued, James Harold Gilliam, Elizabeth A. Coonan, on the brief, Des Moines, IA, for appellant.

David S. Gorham, argued, Des Moines, IA, for appellee

Before MELLOY, COLLOTON, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

Dr. Abir Qamhiyah appeals the district court's¹ adverse grant of summary judgment dismissing her employment-discrimination claims against Iowa State University of Science and Technology ("ISU") and the Iowa Board of Regents (the "Board of Regents"). We affirm.

I.

"We recite the facts in the light most favorable to [Qamhiyah], as the nonmoving part[y]." O'Brien v. Dep't of Agric., 532 F.3d 805, 808 (8th Cir.2008).

A. Background

Qamhiyah is a Palestinian woman who was born in Kuwait. She practices Islam. ISU hired Qamhiyah in 1996 as a full-time, non-tenured Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department (the "ME Department") of the College of Engineering. Her Position Responsibility Statement, in relevant part, provided:

Your responsibilities will include teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in Mechanical Engineering, supervising graduate and undergraduate student research, and continuing your own professional development.... We expect you to develop a research program seeking outside funding of your research efforts to carry out the research itself and to support the graduate students working with you. The most important outcome of your scholarly endeavors will be graduates and refereed publications, meeting presentations, patents, and perhaps texts. This scholarship should contribute to the national and international prestige and visibility of you and the department in the field of mechanical engineering.

As outlined in the ISU Faculty Handbook, full-time, non-tenured professors at ISU ordinarily serve seven-year probationary periods before ISU considers them for promotion and tenure. This time period is to allow non-tenured professors an opportunity to demonstrate their qualifications for promotion. ISU allows non-tenured professors to extend their probationary periods in certain circumstances, including the birth of children. ISU's extension policy provides that "[s]tandards regarding what constitutes a record deserving of tenure shall not be raised to adjust for any granted extension."

Non-tenured faculty members typically apply for promotion and tenure in their sixth probationary year. The tenure-review process at ISU is multi-faceted, involving reviews at the department, college, and university levels. During a candidate's tenure review, multiple committees and administrators make recommendations regarding a candidate's promotion. The Board of Regents,² however, makes the ultimate decision as to whether to promote a candidate.

B. Qamhiyah's Probationary Period

Qamhiyah alleges that when she began working at ISU in 1996, Indian members of the ME Department immediately began discriminating against her based on her national origin and religion. Specifically, she claims these professors made discriminatory remarks to her and refused to support her research, mentor her, or work with her. Qamhiyah also contends that other, non-Indian members of the ME Department discriminated against her because of her gender and her pregnancies while at ISU.

Because Qamhiyah was a non-tenured professor, the ME Department Chair conducted annual evaluations of her. These evaluations considered Qamhiyah's performance as well as her potential for promotion. An intra-department Promotion and Tenure Screening Committee (the "Screening Committee") also periodically reviewed Qamhiyah's progress.

The first annual evaluation Qamhiyah received was a 1997 evaluation by Dr. Warren DeVries, the then-ME Department Chair. In his written evaluation, which he provided to Qamhiyah, DeVries stated that Qamhiyah was "making good progress" as a professor, and he complimented Qamhiyah for her positive student ratings as an instructor. DeVries emphasized, however, that Qamhiyah needed to publish more. He also observed that, because Qamhiyah was due to give birth to her first child in 1998, it would be a challenge for Qamhiyah to satisfy ISU's tenure requirements. Nonetheless, he stated that Qamhiyah "seem[ed] to thrive on challenges" and was "an important and valued part of the mechanical systems activity in Mechanical Engineering and the College."

In his 1998 and 1999 written evaluations of Qamhiyah, DeVries made similar positive comments regarding Qamhiyah's teaching. In 1998, however, DeVries told Qamhiyah that her external financial support was "below average" and that she needed to "put effort" into her publishing and training of graduate students. In 1999, DeVries similarly stated that Qamhiyah's "program of scholarship, particularly publications in print and external support for graduate students to sustain [her] scholarly activities really need[ed] a boost to get [her] on track for promotion and tenure." DeVries told Qamhiyah that her external financial support, which he referred to as the "coin of the realm," remained "below average." He therefore warned Qamhiyah that if asked if Qamhiyah could sustain her research, he would answer "no." These observations were consistent with the Screening Committee's findings from 1999 that Qamhiyah had a good teaching reputation but needed to increase her external funding, graduate student training, and journal publications.

In October 2000, Qamhiyah requested a one-year extension of her probationary period for the birth of her second child.³ DeVries supported Qamhiyah's request, and ISU granted her an extension. Thereafter, in his written evaluation of Qamhiyah's 2000 performance, DeVries stated, "With a reduced load in the Spring 2001 semester for parental leave, and an extra year to prepare your case for promotion and tenure, you will need to continue to focus on scholarly output and external support for your research program." He observed that Qamhiyah had "poor output" from her graduate students and was failing to publish "up to [her] intellectual capacity." He stated that Qamhiyah's "overall progress toward promotion and tenure [was] fair to average."

DeVries's final year as the ME Department Chair was 2001. DeVries stated in his evaluation of Qamhiyah for that year that Qamhiyah had "made progress" in her scholarship but that her publishing record remained "below average." He also told Qamhiyah that her external support was "a weakness in [her] portfolio [that would] be a challenge to overcome." He stated that Qamhiyah's promotion and tenure case was "not very strong." That year, the Screening Committee similarly found that Qamhiyah had "significant shortfalls in her academic record," including weaknesses in publishing and fundraising.

In 2002, Dr. Jon Van Gerpen became the interim ME Department Chair. In his 2002 evaluation of Qamhiyah, Van Gerpen relayed that year's Screening Committee findings that Qamhiyah's "grants and refereed publications [were] weak" and that she would likely have problems succeeding if she were up for tenure. Van Gerpen noted that the Screening Committee likely had not considered some funds that Qamhiyah had recently procured, but Qamhiyah agreed that she needed to raise more funding. Van Gerpen concluded his evaluation by stating that Qamhiyah's scholarly focus on patents and inventions "was unusual and presented some risk [for her tenure prospects] if [those] items were not viewed as substitutes for the more traditional publications and grants."

In August 2002, Qamhiyah requested a second year-long extension of her probationary period for the birth of her third child. Van Gerpen supported Qamhiyah's request, and ISU subsequently granted it.

C. Qamhiyah's Tenure Review

In 2003, Dr. Judy Vance became the ME Department Chair. Because 2003 was Qamhiyah's sixth probationary year (excluding her two extensions), Qamhiyah applied for promotion and tenure that fall. As stated above, ISU policy required department, college, and university reviews of Qamhiyah's application before it proceeded to the Board of Regents for a final decision.

1. Qamhiyah's ME Department Review

Qamhiyah's ME Department review required evaluations from a Promotion and Tenure Review Committee (the "Review Committee"), the voting members of the ME Department faculty, and the ME Department Chair. The Review Committee, which was the first committee to evaluate Qamhiyah's application, consisted of three ME Department faculty members. Its charge was "to perform an in-depth investigation of [Qamhiyah's] qualifications" and to present a recommendation to the voting faculty members of the ME Department. ME Department policy provided that the ME Department Chair, Vance, was to select two Review Committee members and that Qamhiyah had the option of selecting one member.

Qamhiyah requested that Dr. Donald Flugrad be on the Review Committee. Flugrad was not a full professor, but he was Qamhiyah's mentor. Vance asked Flugrad to join the Review Committee and serve as its chair. Flugrad agreed to join the Review Committee, but he declined to chair it. He stated that he believed a full professor needed to be the chair. Vance agreed. Vance then appointed Dr. James Oliver as the Review Committee's second member. Oliver was not a full professor, but he had recruited Qamhiyah to ISU, had done some work with Qamhiyah, and was the member of the ME Department whose work most closely aligned with Qamhiyah's.

As to the third member, Qamhiyah told Vance that she did not want two Indian professors, Drs. Pal Molian and Shyam Bahdur, on the Review Committee. Vance and Qamhiyah therefore discussed two other candidates: DeVries, the former ME Department Chair, and Dr. Abhijit Chandra, another Indian...