Taylor v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. Sys. of Ga.
| Decision Date | 03 October 2022 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 1:20-CV-5048-SEG |
| Parties | AREBE TAYLOR, Plaintiff, v. BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF GEORGIA d/b/a UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia |
This case is before the Court on Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 48). Plaintiff has filed a Response (Doc. 55) and Defendants a Reply (Doc. 58). Defendants move to dismiss Plaintiff's Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 43) under Rule 12(b)(6), as well as for failure to comply with a prior order of this Court (Doc. 39).[1] Defendants also assert the defense of qualified immunity on behalf of all individual-capacity defendants and contest the availability of injunctive relief.
In summary, the Court finds as follows. Plaintiff has failed to allege facts sufficient to state a substantive due process claim against any defendant (Part III(A)). Plaintiff has alleged facts sufficient to state a procedural due process claim with respect to his disciplinary process, but not his academic dismissal or any other aspect of the complaint. (Part III(B)). However although he has stated this procedural due process claim, the relevant defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, and thus the procedural due process claim is due to be dismissed (Part V(A)). With respect to his race discrimination claims Plaintiff has failed to state a Title VI claim against the Board of Regents (Part IV(B)), but he has adequately stated a § 1981 claim against Defendants Harmon and Feldman (Part IV(C)). At least at this stage, Harmon and Feldman are not entitled to qualified immunity with respect to the § 1981 claim (Part V(B)). Plaintiff has not alleged sufficient facts to show entitlement to any injunctive relief under Ex Parte Young against any defendant in their official capacity (Part VI). Plaintiff's claim for punitive damages must also be dismissed, as punitive damages are a form of relief, not a cause of action (Part VII). Finally, the Court will not dismiss the Second Amended Complaint for failure to comply with its previous order (Part VII).
The Court, in other words, will grant Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 48) as to all claims except Count VI of the Second Amended Complaint. The overall effect of this Order is that the case will go forward only with respect to Plaintiff's race discrimination claims for money damages against Defendants Harmon and Feldman in their individual capacities.
Plaintiff, a former graduate student in the Department of Public Health at the University of Georgia, brings constitutional due process claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1983, as well as race and national origin discrimination claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1981 and 28 U.S.C. § 2000d, also known as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The claims are directed at the Board of Regents of the University of Georgia, various university administrators, and two members of the Public Health faculty who charged him with academic dishonesty and dismissed him from his graduate program. The Second Amended Complaint (“the Complaint”) is long and frequently repetitive. These characteristics of the pleading have been the subject of some dispute in this case, including a Motion to Dismiss and/or Motion for a More Definite Statement (Doc. 26) and an order by this Court requiring Plaintiff to amend the pleadings to comply with Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Doc. 39).
The well-pleaded allegations of fact in the Second Amended Complaint can be summarized as follows.[2] Plaintiff is Black, a citizen of Sierra Leone, and a naturalized citizen of the United States. He was admitted to the DrPH program at the University of Georgia in 2015.[3] With certain exceptions discussed below, he was generally academically successful during his years in the program. According to the graduate school's guidelines, he should have been appointed an advisory committee of three faculty members by the end of his first year, but he never was, despite asking repeatedly. Plaintiff states that the promise of an advisory committee was a significant part of what drew him to the program.
A requirement for students in the DrPH program is the passage of a comprehensive exam. Plaintiff first attempted the comprehensive exam in 2018 and failed. Plaintiff alleges that his 2018 comprehensive exam “was not graded according to the stipulated grading rubric” and was evaluated not by his advisory committee-he had none-but by Defendant Harmon, a member of the public health faculty and the “DrPH Program Director/Coordinator.” (Doc. 43 at 20, ¶ 56.) The comments on this exam referred to, among other things, grammatical and spelling mistakes. (English is not Plaintiff's first language.) Plaintiff was not assigned to any formal remediation program, either regarding the substance of the exam or his English composition, as he alleges he should have been.
In mid-March 2019, Plaintiff attempted the comprehensive exam for the second time. This time he “enlisted the help of a proofreader.” (Doc. 43 at 22, ¶ 63.) The exam comprised a written and oral portion, and the written portion comprised two separate components that were uploaded separately.
On April 3, 2019, Plaintiff was notified that the second half of the written portion of his comprehensive exam had been flagged for possible plagiarism, a violation of the University's Academic Honesty Policy. Two weeks later, under the aegis of the University's Office of Academic Honesty, he had the first official meeting regarding the plagiarism accusations, called a “Facilitated Discussion.” The meeting included Defendant Harmon, Plaintiff, and a mediator. Plaintiff alleges that he introduced evidence showing that the plagiarism, which involved one paragraph of his answer, was the result of his accidentally submitting the wrong document. He alleges that Defendant Harmon “refused to look at Plaintiff's evidence” and “disclosed that [Defendant] Dr. Stuart Feldman, Interim Head and Graduate Coordinator of UGA's Department of Health Policy and Management (HPAM), had already made a predetermined dismissal decision.” (Doc. 43 at 27, ¶¶ 79-80.) No agreement was reached at this meeting regarding any violations or consequences.
Then followed the “Continued Discussion,” which despite its name is more of a hearing-like affair held before an “Academic Honesty Panel.” Plaintiff received notice about a week in advance of this hearing that it would concern the comprehensive exam and his alleged plagiarism. Here, Plaintiff presented his case, and Defendant Harmon, now accompanied by Defendant Feldman, presented the instructors' side. Both Defendant Harmon and Defendant Feldman spoke against Plaintiff during the hearing, which Plaintiff claims was a violation of the Academic Honesty Policy rules governing its procedures. Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Feldman was also “allowed to freely make interjections . . . in attempts to falsify Plaintiff's statements” during the hearing. (Doc. 43 at 33, ¶ 104.) During the hearing, Defendant Feldman also allegedly raised the separate issue of Plaintiff's use of a proofreader on the examination, alleging that this constituted “unauthorized assistance,” a separate violation of the Academic Honesty Policy. Plaintiff had not received any notice of this charge prior to the hearing. (See Doc. 43-2 at 3.) Plaintiff did not contest the charges of plagiarism, but he tried to show the Panel that the charges implicated only one paragraph of his exam and that he had intended to submit a different document which was created contemporaneously with the document containing the plagiarized material. Defendant Feldman advocated before the Panel for Plaintiff's dismissal based on the need to “preserve the integrity of the CPH program.” (Doc. 43 at 52, ¶ 180.)
The Panel found Plaintiff to have committed both plagiarism and unauthorized assistance violations, but it assigned only the consequence of “a ‘0' or the lowest possible grade on the academic work.” (Doc. 43-7 at 2.) The absence of additional consequences is noteworthy, since under the Academic Honestly Policy, the Panel was required to impose some additional penalty absent “extraordinary circumstances.” If it found such circumstances to exist, it was supposed to explain them in writing. (Doc. 43-6 at 13-14.) The Panel offered no such explanation, but Plaintiff states “on information and belief” that the Panel accepted his arguments about the plagiarism being the unintentional result of a submission error. (Doc. 43 at 38, ¶ 126.)
On the Monday following the Friday Continued Discussion, Plaintiff received a letter from Defendant Harmon stating that he would be dismissed from the program because of the Panel's findings. (Doc. 43-8.) The Panel's penalty-Plaintiff's failure of the comprehensive exam-meant that he had failed the comprehensive exam course for the second time, and according to the department's handbook, twice failing the comprehensive exam course mandates dismissal from the program. (Doc. 43 at 40, ¶ 131.) Plaintiff disputes the way the grade was calculated, alleging, in essence, that Harmon and Feldman improperly “extrapolate[d]” the “zero grade” penalty to the entire exam, and thence to the entire course. The pleadings suggest that Plaintiff believes the “zero grade” should have only applied to the portion of the written component of his exam that contained the plagiarized material. The final grade for the comprehensive examination course was never entered into his transcript.
Plaintiff then began a series of appeals. First he appealed the Academic Honesty Panel's decision to the University's Office of the President, which affirmed the Panel's findings. Then he...
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