Vargas-Harrison v. Racine Unified School Dist.

• Decision Date: 30 November 2001
• Docket Number: P,No. 01-1440,VARGAS-HARRISO,01-1440
• Citation: 272 F.3d 964
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2001) JUANAlaintiff-Appellant, v. RACINE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, DENNIS McGOLDRICK, JOHN PELEJ, et al., Defendants-Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 964

272 F.3d 964 (7th Cir. 2001)

JUANA VARGAS-HARRISON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. RACINE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, DENNIS McGOLDRICK, JOHN PELEJ, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 01-1440

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Argued September 13, 2001

Decided November 30, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. No. 99 C 845--Rudolph T. Randa, Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Before RIPPLE, ROVNER and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

Juana Vargas- Harrison filed this action against her employer, the Racine Unified School District ("School District"), alleging that the School District had violated her First Amendment rights when it demoted her for opposing publicly one of its policies. The complaint also named the School District's Superintendent Dennis McGoldrick, Assistant Superintendent John Pelej, and Director of School Operations Patricia Stephens-Rogers (collectively "Administrators") as individual defendants to the suit. The district court entered summary judgment for the School District and its Administrators, finding that Ms. Vargas-Harrison occupied a policy-making position within the school system. The district court concluded that, because Ms. Vargas- Harrison was a policy-making employee who had engaged in speech critical of her superiors' policies, the School District could demote her without implicating her First Amendment rights. The district court also dismissed as moot Ms. Vargas- Harrison's pending motion to amend her complaint to include a procedural due process claim against the School District. For the reasons set forth in the following opinion, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I BACKGROUND

A. Facts

In the fall of 1998, Ms. Vargas-Harrison became the principal of Knapp Elementary, a grade school located in the Racine Unified School District. As the head administrator at Knapp, Ms. Vargas- Harrison evaluated the school's personnel, provided guidance in curriculum and instructional development, and implemented the policies of the Board of Education. In addition, the School District required each of its principals, including Ms. Vargas-Harrison, to spearhead the development of a P-5 grant proposal for his or her school.

The P-5 Program is a legislative program of the State of Wisconsin that offers financial aid to public schools serving disadvantaged children. For a school to receive this funding, the local school board, on its own initiative or by appli cation of the principal, petitions the State for a P-5 grant. Although the proposal must detail how the school intends to spend the funds, Wisconsin does not mandate any particular use for the grant. To the contrary, each school has wide discretion in crafting its own proposal. In the case of Knapp Elementary, this discretion fell to its principal, Ms. Vargas-Harrison.

On April 22, 1999, Ms. Vargas-Harrison presented her initial P-5 proposal to the School District's Curriculum and Instruction Committee ("Committee"). The proposal suggested using the P-5 grant to fund an alternative reading program. Ms. Vargas-Harrison's plan would mark a dramatic shift in the use of the funds because the proposal channeled money away from several teaching positions traditionally paid for by the grant. Confronted with the prospect of job cuts, the local teachers' union vehemently objected to Ms. Vargas-Harrison's proposal. Based on this opposition, the Committee did not approve Ms. Vargas-Harrison's plan.

Dismayed with the outcome of the meeting, Ms. Vargas-Harrison contacted her superior, Patricia Stephens-Rogers, and expressed frustration with the union's reaction to the proposal. However, Ms. Vargas-Harrison received little solace from the School District because it had been attempting to improve its relations with the union. Rather than supporting Ms. Vargas-Harrison's proposal, Stephens-Rogers directed Ms. Vargas-Harrison to collaborate with union officials in modifying the plan. Despite the admonition, Ms. Vargas-Harrison did not participate in the ongoing effort to recast Knapp's P-5 proposal. A group of parents and teachers, however, proceeded to cobble together a new plan without the assistance of Ms. Vargas-Harrison.

In the meantime, Ms. Vargas-Harrison continued to advocate her original plan. In particular, she sent a letter to the president of the local school board that detailed the deficiencies in the current use of the P-5 grant funds. As an alternative, she enclosed a copy of her rejected plan.

On May 25, 1999, a coalition of teachers and parents was scheduled to present their revised P-5 proposal to the Committee. The School District, however, recognized that Ms. Vargas-Harrison opposed the modification of her original plan. Therefore, on three separate occasions prior to the presentation, School District officials asked Ms. Vargas-Harrison to attend the meeting. Although the School District did not order her to participate in the presentation, its officials believed that Ms. Vargas-Harrison's presence would indicate her support for the revised proposal. For her part, Ms. Vargas- Harrison understood that the School District wanted her to support the proposal even if she did not agree with it.

At the May 25 public meeting, Ms. Vargas-Harrison disregarded the advice of her superiors. After the new plan had been presented, Ms. Vargas-Harrison received permission to speak to those gathered at the meeting. She proceeded to emphasize the flaws in the new proposal. Once again, Ms. Vargas-Harrison distributed copies of her original plan and offered it as an alternative to the new proposal. She indicated it was "time to let the principal do the job and stop the union running the school." R.42 at 157.

Her stance was not well received by the School District. On two occasions, Ms. Vargas-Harrison met with School District officials concerning her conduct at the May presentation. Soon after these meetings, on June 18, 1999, the School District demoted her to the position of assistant principal at another institution. However, she would never serve in that position. Over the next seventeen months, Ms. Vargas-Harrison did not report to work; rather, she consumed her vacation days and various leave periods. After she had exhausted all possible excused absences and still had failed to return to her new position, the School District terminated her in January 2001.

B. District Court Proceedings

1.

On July 26, 1999, Ms. Vargas-Harrison filed suit against the School District and its Administrators, alleging that they had demoted her in retaliation for her public opposition to their preferred P-5 grant proposal. The district court denied Ms. Vargas-Harrison's initial request for a temporary restraining order that would have reinstated her as principal of Knapp Elementary. After a lengthy hearing, the district court also rejected Ms. Vargas-Harrison's motion for a preliminary injunction.

The School District and its Administrators then moved for summary judgment. They submitted that Ms.-Vargas- Harrison occupied a policy-making position within the school system. The School District argued that, because local school regulations unequivocally indicated that Knapp's principal had input into governmental decisionmaking, the court could resolve, as a matter of law, Ms. Vargas-Harrison's status as a policy-making employee. If Ms. Vargas- Harrison was a policy-maker, continued the School District, she owed her superiors a degree of loyalty with regard to job-related policy issues. The School District maintained that she had disregarded that duty when she criticized her superiors' preferred P-5 proposal. Because she was a policy-maker and because her May 25 speech involved a matter of educational policy, the School District contended that the First Amendment did not protect her May 25 speech. Consequently in its view, the demotion of Ms. Vargas-Harrison was constitutionally permissible.

In the alternative, the Administrators sought to be dismissed from the case on qualified immunity grounds. They maintained that the law concerning the precise scope of the policy-maker analysis was unrefined at the time of Ms. Vargas-Harrison's dismissal. They contended that a reasonable school official would not have recognized that Ms. Vargas-Harrison's demotion violated the Constitution.

In opposing the motion for summary judgment, Ms. Vargas-Harrison maintained that the record did not support a finding that she occupied a policy-making position within the school system. She also submitted that the Administrators were not entitled to qualified immunity because they had violated her clearly established right to speak on matters of public concern.

Before the district court rendered a judgment on the motion,¹ on January 18, 2001, the School District terminated Ms. Vargas-Harrison. It alleged that it had taken this action because Ms. Vargas- Harrison had not returned to work since her demotion eighteen months earlier. Ms. Vargas-Harrison, however, contended that the discharge gave rise to two new claims against the School District. Specifically, she maintained that the termination had not only amounted to retaliatory discharge but had also violated her right to procedural due process. As such, she sought from the district court leave to amend her complaint to incorporate these new allegations.

2.

Before the district court addressed Ms. Vargas-Harrison's motion to amend her complaint, it entered summary judgment for the School District and its Administrators. The district court held that, as a matter of law, Ms. Vargas-Har rison was a policy-making employee who had advocated publicly positions in conflict with her superiors' job-related policy viewpoints. The School District therefore could demote and ultimately terminate Ms. Vargas-Harrison without impinging upon her First Amendment rights. In reaching its conclusions, the district court acknowledged that an...