Rodriguez v. Board of Educ. of Eastchester Union Free School Dist.
| Decision Date | 02 May 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 954,D,954 |
| Parties | 22 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1259, 23 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 30,921 Carmen V. RODRIGUEZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF EASTCHESTER UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Robert W. Young, Superintendent of Schools of the Eastchester Union Free School District, and Ronald S. Lockhart, President of the Board of Education of Eastchester Union Free School District, Defendants-Appellees. ocket 80-7013. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Lewis M. Steel, New York City (Eisner, Levy, Steel & Bellman, P. C., New York City, of counsel), for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Susanna E. Bedell, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. (Van De Water & Van De Water, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., of counsel), for Defendants-Appellees.
Before KAUFMAN, Chief Judge, MESKILL, Circuit Judge, and BRIEANT, District Judge. *
The principal goal of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is to achieve true equality in employment opportunities for women and racial, religious and national minorities who hitherto have been barred from competing on an equal basis in the national marketplace. Recognizing that job discrimination may take many forms, Congress cast the prohibitions of Title VII broadly to include subtle distinctions in the terms and conditions of employment as well as gross salary differentials based on forbidden classifications. In the instant case the district court dismissed the sex discrimination suit of a junior high school art teacher who was transferred to an elementary school in the same system, allegedly on the basis of her sex, essentially because the transfer entailed no loss of salary or other monetary benefits. We reverse.
Dr. Carmen Rodriguez is a junior high school art teacher with twenty years' experience. From September 1959 until June 1979, she taught in the Eastchester Union Free School District's single junior high school. During that period, she received both master's and doctoral degrees in art and art education from Columbia University, where her studies focused on programs for the junior high school student. Indeed, her doctoral dissertation was titled, "A Model Arts Program for the Middle School of Eastchester School District Number 1."
During the spring of 1979, it became apparent that, due to declining enrollment, the school district would no longer require the services of one of its art teachers. Accordingly, Superintendent Young decided that the art teacher with the least seniority who happened to be a woman assigned to the Anne Hutchinson Elementary School was not to be rehired the following year. On April 5, 1979, Dr. Rodriguez was informed by her principal, Dr. Mary Savage, that it would be necessary to replace the dismissed elementary school teacher, and that she was likely to be the teacher selected to fill the position. At that time, the junior high school employed two other art teachers, both males, neither of whom possessed Dr. Rodriguez's teaching credentials, and of whom one had less seniority. When Dr. Rodriguez protested that one of the male teachers would be better suited for the assignment, Dr. Savage allegedly replied, "They wouldn't have a male grade school art teacher." Indeed, it appears that in the last 22 years there has never been a male art teacher in the Eastchester elementary schools.
Dr. Rodriguez immediately wrote to the Superintendent of Schools, the President of the School Board, and to counsel for the school district, questioning "the legality, not to mention the insensitivity" of the decision. Superintendent Young's response was a formal notice dated May 3, 1979, informing Dr. Rodriguez of her transfer. (Young later stated that his decision was based, in part, upon the recommendation of Dr. Savage.) The following day Dr. Rodriguez learned that her position in the junior high was to be filled by a male art teacher with half her seniority who was to be transferred from the district's high school. When further protests on her part and on her behalf (from both her thesis advisor and her former principal) proved unavailing, Dr. Rodriguez filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and instituted this suit against the school board, its President, Ronald Lockhart, and Superintendent Young, in the Southern District of New York.
The complaint alleges the facts summarized above and claims sex discrimination in violation of her constitutional and statutory rights protected by 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Further the complaint demanded both damages and injunctive relief. On July 18, 1979, Dr. Rodriguez moved the district court for a preliminary injunction restraining her transfer, which was scheduled to become effective at the commencement of the school year. On the same day, defendants moved to dismiss for want of jurisdiction or for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Before any hearing on this motion, the plaintiff obtained a "right to sue" letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and thus cured the principal jurisdictional defect alleged in the motion to dismiss, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1), which was later denied by the district judge. Both parties then submitted affidavits and presented testimony at a preliminary hearing on Dr. Rodriguez's motion for the injunction pendente lite. Defendants' position was that Dr. Rodriguez, because of her expertise in "two-dimensional skills," was the junior high school teacher best qualified to teach in the elementary schools. These considerations, along with an apparent personality conflict between Dr. Rodriguez and her principal, Dr. Savage, were said to form the basis of the decision to transfer her. Affidavits and testimony presented by the appellant supported the not inconsistent proposition that she was also the system's best qualified junior high school teacher. In addition, Dr. Rodriguez offered statistics drawn from the school system's Teacher Directory purporting to show a disproportionate percentage of female teachers in the elementary grades, and presented affidavits and testimony demonstrating that the transfer was, in effect, a demotion that would constitute a serious professional setback and stigma to her career. She did not, however, contest the statement of Superintendent Young that
The district court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction at the close of the hearing. Judge Werker stated, however, that if Dr. Rodriguez could present statistics showing the proportion of female applicants for elementary school positions, along with their qualifications to bolster her showing of disproportionate female representation in the lower grades, "there may be a cause of action."
Dr. Rodriguez, accordingly, filed extensive interrogatories designed, in part, to elicit the statistical evidence referred to by the district court. The appellees responded with a "motion for a protective order and to strike demand for damages" which also renewed their earlier motion to dismiss. In granting this motion, the district judge stated that he was acting pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Nevertheless, his extensive reliance upon facts de hors the pleadings presented in connection with the preliminary injunction motion, had the effect of making his disposition, at least in part, as one granting summary judgment for defendants pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c), 56. Because of the court's action, the judge was required to draw all reasonable inferences and resolve all genuine disputes in favor of the plaintiff. The court, nevertheless, concluded that a complaint alleging sex discrimination under Title VII Dr. Rodriguez's alternative claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 was dismissed for failure to allege bad faith. In the district judge's opinion, "(e)ven if plaintiff's sex was one of the factors considered by Dr. Young in reaching his determination, the transfer of a woman for valid educational reasons without any accompanying adverse economic impact on her and without any indication or allegation of bad faith does not warrant the interference of a court in the decision-making process of a school system." Appellant was thus deprived of discovery and a trial on the merits.
Title VII renders it unlawful for an employer "to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's . . . sex, . . . or to limit, segregate, or classify his employees . . . in any way which would deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's . . . sex." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a). The quoted language makes it abundantly...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Bridgeport Guardians, Inc. v. Delmonte, Civ. No. B-78-175.
...the American workplace. See, e.g. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971); Rodriguez v. Board of Education, 620 F.2d 362 (2d Cir.1980); Rogers v. E.E.O.C., 454 F.2d 234 (5th Cir.1971), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 957, 92 S.Ct. 2058, 32 L.Ed.2d 343 (1972), and ......
-
Phipps v. New York State Dept. of Labor
...de la Cruz v. New York City Human Resources Admin. Dept. of Soc. Services, 82 F.3d 16, 21 (2d Cir.1996) (quoting Rodriguez v. Board of Educ., 620 F.2d 362, 366 (2d Cir.1980)), and may include instances where plaintiff was transferred to a less prestigious unit with little opportunity for ad......
-
Cahill v. O'Donnell
...52 (1990). Even a transfer that entails no loss of pay or benefits may constitute an adverse employment action. Rodriguez v. Board of Education, 620 F.2d 362, 366 (2d Cir.1980). Therefore, both Cahill's transfer and Valvo's reassignment may be adverse employment actions.4 The other retaliat......
-
Thomas v. BD. OF TRUSTEES, ETC.
...1980); Hander v. San Jacinto Junior College, 519 F.2d 273, 277 n.1 (5th Cir. 1975). See also Rodriguez v. Board of Education of Eastchester Union Free Sch. Dist., 620 F.2d 362, 366 (2nd Cir. 1980). Under Monell, monetary damages may be assessed against the Board in its official capacity onl......
-
Table of Cases
...609 (1984), 70 Robertson v. NBA, 389 F. Supp. 867 (S.D.N.Y. 1975), 270 Rodriguez v. Bd. of Educ. of Eastchester Union Free Sch. Dist., 620 F.2d 362 (2d Cir. 1980), 131 Roman Restoration, Inc. v. Operative Plasterers’ & Cement Masons’ Int’l Ass’n Local No. 8, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49940 (D.N......
-
The State Action Doctrine and Litigation Against State and Local Governments
...Minton v. St. Bernard Parish Sch. Bd., 803 F.2d 129, 134 (5th Cir. 1986); Rodriguez v. Bd. of Educ. of Eastchester Union Free Sch. Dist., 620 F.2d 362, 366 (2d Cir. 1980); Rowley v. McMillan, 502 F.2d 1326, 1331-32 (4th Cir. 1974); see also Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 314 n.6 (1975) (......