Shanoff v. State of Illinois Dep't of Human Services

• Decision Date: 25 July 2001
• Docket Number: PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT,DEFENDANT-APPELLEE,No. 00-3325,00-3325
• Citation: 258 F.3d 696
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2001) KENNETH M. SHANOFF,, v. STATE OF ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES,
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 696

258 F.3d 696 (7th Cir. 2001)

KENNETH M. SHANOFF, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, v. STATE OF ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, DEFENDANT-APPELLEE.

No. 00-3325

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

Argued April 4, 2001

Decided July 25, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 99 C 4084--James F. Holderman, Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before Coffey, Manion, and Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judges.

Manion, Circuit Judge.

Kenneth Shanoff sued his employer, the Illinois Department of Human Services ("IDHS"), alleging that his supervisor subjected him to a hostile work environment because of his race and religion, in violation of Title VII. The IDHS moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted, concluding that the supervisor's remarks were not severe enough to create a hostile work environment. Shanoff appeals. We reverse and remand.

I.

Kenneth Shanoff graduated from the Chicago Medical School in the 1970's, but he is not licensed to practice medicine. He began working for the IDHS in 1995 as a staff development and training coordinator at the John Madden Mental Health Center ("Madden Center"). In July 1996, Sylvia Riperton-Lewis ("Riperton-Lewis"), who is black, was hired as a manager at the Madden Center and became Shanoff's direct supervisor.

Shanoff, who is white and Jewish, alleges that over the next several months, Riperton-Lewis repeatedly harassed him with remarks directed at his race and religion. Riperton-Lewis denies that she made any of the discriminatory comments that Shanoff has alleged in this case. But "[b]ecause the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant, we take the facts alleged by the plaintiff to be true." Adusumilli v. City of Chicago, 164 F.3d 353, 357 (7th Cir. 1998).

In the summer of 1996, Shanoff met with Riperton-Lewis to discuss work matters, and during that meeting she asked Shanoff his religion. When Shanoff suggested that the question was "strange," Riperton-Lewis responded that she had a "right" to ask it. Shanoff responded that he is Jewish. During another meeting in the fall of 1996 or the winter of 1997, Riperton-Lewis referred to Shanoff as a "haughty Jew." When Shanoff told Riperton-Lewis that her comment made him angry, she told him that he did not want to see "this nigger get angry," and then she lunged at him with a pen, which Shanoff evaded. Shanoff reported this incident to Ugo Formigoni, M.D., the director of the Madden Center and Riperton-Lewis's supervisor. Shanoff also asked Formigoni for a change in supervisors. According to Shanoff, Formigoni stated that the incident was "terrible" and that he would look into it, but he did not change Shanoff's supervisor.

From January through March 1997, Riperton-Lewis turned down requests by Madden Center staff for Shanoff to conduct presentations, and she attempted to terminate Shanoff's involvement with medical students. Shanoff asked Riperton-Lewis why she did not want him to teach medical students, which was provided for in his job description. She responded by taking Shanoff's job description out of her desk, scratching out that provision, and stating, "Now it's not." When Shanoff asked her why she did that, Riperton-Lewis replied: "I know how to put you Jews in your place."

In March or April 1997, Shanoff reported these incidents to Sue Varso, the Director of Labor Relations at the Madden Center. He asked for a change of supervisor and for Riperton-Lewis's comments to cease. Varso advised him that he could file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). According to Shanoff, while he was considering whether to file a complaint, "Riperton-Lewis called me into her office and told me that if I did such a thing, if I did report her to anyone outside of the facility, that she had friends who could take care of me and who would take care of me." Shanoff considered those remarks a "direct threat." He felt trapped and did not report the incident to anyone.

Riperton-Lewis and Shanoff continued to disagree about whether he should be teaching certain courses. In early September 1997, Riperton-Lewis came into Shanoff's office and "told [him] that she was tired of [him] not knowing [his] place, and that when was [he] going to learn that she knew how to handle white Jewish males like [him]." When Shanoff asked her to leave his office, she repeatedly replied "you know damn well I know how to handle white Jewish males like you and when are you going to learn." During that same month, Shanoff had requested personal days off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But Riperton-Lewis denied his request, stating, "I don't give a damn about your holidays."

In November 1997, Riperton-Lewis had ordered Shanoff to no longer participate in a particular project at the Madden Center that Shanoff had co-chaired with Joel Silberberg, M.D., the Center's medical director. In response to a question from Silberberg, Shanoff notified him of Riperton-Lewis's order and, according to Shanoff, Silberberg apparently discussed the situation with Riperton-Lewis. Riperton-Lewis then called Shanoff into her office and ordered him not to "speak to anyone in leadership about any matter without her permission . . . or there would be trouble." Shanoff had also testified that Riperton-Lewis then "went into a rage" and told him that he "didn't want to see or wasn't [he] tired of seeing what an angry nigger could do." According to Shanoff, Riperton-Lewis stated that she "would see to it that she would ruin my career, and that she was protected and could do as she pleased." That ended the conversation.

That same month, Shanoff discussed this incident with Ms. Lee Steiner, a director at the Madden Center. Shanoff testified that he told Steiner that he "felt totally trapped and that [he] couldn't tolerate the situation anymore and [he] needed her [Steiner's] help." Shanoff also discussed the incident with Formigoni in November 1997. According to Shanoff:

[Formigoni] said that it was obvious that there was going to be no resolution to this and that I needed to think about looking for other places to work, that there was no way he was going to change supervisors and that I needed to look for a different place to work if I wanted to be happy, that it was not his job to make me happy and that I needed to look for another place of employment.

During the same month, Shanoff also discussed Riperton-Lewis's remarks with Pat Madden, the hospital administrator at the Madden Center. Shanoff testified that:

[Pat Madden] said well she could appreciate the problems I was having, that Dr. Formigoni was Ms. Riperton-Lewis' supervisor, therefore, she could do nothing and she gave me three options. One, that I would learn to live with it, live with the comments and the behaviors; two would be to find a different place of employment; or three to sue Ms. Riperton-Lewis.

Shanoff responded that he "felt totally trapped in the situation" and "that [he] couldn't tolerate--that no one could tolerate the continual discriminatory actions and behaviors of a supervisor, and that suing was not an option because [he] had already been threatened by Ms. Riperton-Lewis."

Shanoff also claims that one day in October or November 1997, when he left for the day, he forgot to "swipe out" with a card as required by Madden Center employees. Riperton-Lewis responded by reporting that day for Shanoff as an unauthorized absence ("UA") and docking half of that day's pay. Shanoff then marshaled documentation that he worked that day and he requested Riperton-Lewis to delete the UA from his record. But she denied his request, responding that she was "tired of dealing with Jews like you."

In late December 1997, Shanoff again met with Formigoni to tell him that his health was failing because of Riperton-Lewis's discriminatory comments, actions and threats. Shanoff also states that a day or two later, Riperton-Lewis "told me that I must be pretty stupid because I would never learn that she was protected, that Howard Peters [who is black] would protect her, that he [Peters] was one of them and that she would see to it that my white ass--my white Jewish ass would be kept down." Shanoff replied to Riperton-Lewis that his health was failing, and according to Shanoff, "she looked at me and said, good."

In January 1998, Riperton-Lewis again said to Shanoff that she no longer wanted him to teach medical students. According to Shanoff, she also affirmed that she "was going to be able to keep my white Jewish ass down."

Again, in late February or early March 1998, Riperton-Lewis told Shanoff that "she knew how to handle white Jewish males, and once and for all that [he] needed to leave Madden and get out of her hair." According to Shanoff, he then told her that "what she had done to me had made me sick, that I was becoming a nothing;" to which she replied by laughing and dismissing him from her office.

On March 16, 1998, Shanoff voluntarily took an extended sick leave, using his accumulated sick leave time. He has extended that leave into a medical/disability leave because he is suffering from depression, and he continues to be on a medical leave of absence from the Madden Center.

In October 1998, while Shanoff had been on leave for several months, Riperton-Lewis called him at home and told him: "you either appear before me tomorrow, or I will take steps to have you discharged." Shanoff responded that his physician had already informed her that he is not able to appear at work. Shanoff then asked her "why are you being like this," to which she responded, "I hate everything that you are."

On October 13, 1998, Shanoff filed a charge with the Illinois Department of Human Rights and the EEOC, alleging that his supervisor discriminated against him on the basis of his "race (Caucasian)" and "religion, Jewish." After receiving his right to sue letter,...