Walker v. Bd. of Regents of University of Wis., 04-3143.

• Citation: 410 F.3d 387
• Decision Date: 09 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-3143.,04-3143.
• Parties: Sharon A. WALKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SYSTEM and David Markee, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 387

410 F.3d 387

Sharon A. WALKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SYSTEM and David Markee, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 04-3143.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued January 10, 2005.

Decided June 9, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

David E. Rohrer (argued), Lathrop & Clark, Madison, WI, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Michael J. Losse (argued), Office of the Attorney General Wisconsin Department of Justice, Madison, WI, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before CUDAHY, KANNE and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Dr. Sharon Walker, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, sued the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and David Markee, Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, claiming that her employment contract with the university was not renewed because of her race and/or her gender and/or because she exercised her First Amendment speech rights. The case went to trial, and the jury exonerated the defendants on plaintiff's race discrimination and First Amendment retaliation claims but returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff on her gender discrimination claim. Following the verdict, the district court granted the defendants' motion for judgment as a matter of law, ruling that, given the evidence adduced at trial, no reasonable jury could have found for the plaintiff on her sex discrimination claim. Plaintiff now appeals the district court's ruling. We affirm.

I. FACTS & DISPOSITION BELOW

Plaintiff Dr. Sharon Walker was hired as Assistant Chancellor of Student Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville (UWP) in 1993, with a starting date of January 1, 1994. In this capacity, Walker served at the pleasure of the Chancellor of the University, meaning that she could be terminated by the Chancellor for any reason or no reason at all, as long as the termination was not discriminatory. This is so because the Chancellor typically depends heavily on the Assistant Chancellors to help implement his or her long-term vision for the university. From 1994 to 1996, the UWP Chancellor was pleased with Walker's work, gave her annual merit pay increases and, in 1996, a multi-year contract extending from 1996 to 1999.

Defendant Dr. David Markee took over as Chancellor of UWP in August 1996, replacing Walker's original boss. The record demonstrates that Markee came to the Chancellor's office hoping to implement an ambitious reorganization plan which he anticipated would involve everyone on the UWP administrative team, including Walker. Both Walker and Markee have Ph.D.s and extensive experience in university administration and student affairs. Unfortunately, during the two years following Markee's assumption of the Chancellorship, Walker's working relationship with Markee became strained and, in a meeting on March 4, 1998, Markee informed her that he would not be renewing her contract. The parties' briefs are replete with factual quibbles and detailed accounts of minor incidents and interactions which do not merit exhaustive consideration here. However, the general sequence of events leading to the non-renewal of Walker's contract appears clear enough.¹

As alluded to earlier, Markee apparently came to the UWP Chancellorship with a mandate to reinvigorate the university. One of Markee's organizational changes involved placing the Admissions Department, headed by Director of Admissions Dr. Richard Schumacher, within the Division of Student Affairs, under Walker's supervision. As part of the Department of Student Affairs, Schumacher took over supervision of the Office of Career Planning and Placement, headed by Sandra Stacy. Schumacher was highly critical of the Office and of Stacy, and he made his concerns known to Walker, who had consistently given Stacy excellent performance reviews. Stacy also filed a complaint against Schumacher for some offensive remarks he made to her in the workplace.² Markee convened a meeting to resolve this dispute and to make Schumacher apologize to Stacy, but Walker was not invited to the meeting. In the wake of this incident, and in light of Walker and Schumacher's widely contrasting views of Stacy's performance, Markee assigned two outside administrators to conduct Stacy's next performance review.

Apart from the difficulties between Schumacher and Stacy, Walker's working relationship with Schumacher soon fell apart. Both Walker and Schumacher had originally opposed moving the Office of Admissions into Student Affairs under Walker, and their reservations appear to have been well-founded. Walker complained that Schumacher was insubordinate and uncooperative, she gave him a poor performance review (recommending that he receive the minimum possible salary increase) and finally asked Markee to relieve her of supervising Schumacher in January 1998. Markee moved Schumacher out from under Walker's supervision as requested. He also overrode Walker's salary recommendation, giving Schumacher a salary increase one level above that recommended by Walker (who had recommended the minimum).³

In the fall of 1997, Walker became aware that the UWP women's basketball coach, Shelly Till, might file a Title IX action against the University. Walker asked Markee for permission to contact the University of Wisconsin System's legal counsel to advise her of the potential complaint. Markee denied her request, saying that it would not be appropriate to do so until a complaint actually had been filed and UWP had examined its own compliance with Title IX. Either Walker or Markee (testimonies conflict) then directed Athletic Director Mark Molesworth to conduct a self-study of UWP's compliance with Title IX. Till eventually did file a Title IX complaint against UWP, and Markee assigned Molesworth to be the principal contact with the UW System's legal counsel, although Walker had administrative authority over the Athletic Department (as did Molesworth and Markee). Molesworth thereafter made regular reports to Walker concerning the complaint and the progress of proceedings. However, Walker evidently felt that she was being unfairly deprived of her rightful role in responding to the complaint.

In addition to these administrative difficulties, Markee received multiple complaints about Walker from both staff and students. Al Thompson, UWP's Director of Multicultural Student Services and an African-American man, told Markee he was resigning his position, at least in part, because of Walker's intimidating and unsupportive management style. The Director of Multicultural Services who succeeded Thompson (Elise Rogers, an African-American woman) resigned after less than two months following a "shouting match" with Walker, citing Walker's intimidating and unsupportive management style. The UWP student president of a statewide residence hall organization also met with Markee to discuss his concern that Walker did not consult with student organizations and viewed student government as an obstacle to campus governance. Two members of the Career Planning and Placement Office resigned in 1997, telling Markee that they could not work with Stacy (their supervisor), and that Walker refused to investigate their concerns. Two faculty representatives to the athletic department (Jack Krogman and Lisa Reidle) requested that they be allowed to report directly to Markee rather than to Walker, saying that Walker's management style adversely affected the morale and operations of the athletic department and that they feared Walker was not reporting issues affecting student athletes to Markee. Markee also received complaints from the UWP Food Services Director, and the Student Center Director told Markee that he was thinking of leaving UWP since he could not function under Walker's supervision.

It is clear that Markee and Walker also clashed directly over several issues during Markee's tenure. The most notable of these was Markee's plan, initially proposed in 1997, to implement a simplified reporting structure and reinvigorate UWP's student recruiting efforts. Pursuant to this plan, Markee asked Walker to free up time so that she could participate more actively in UWP recruiting efforts at public high schools. Walker contends that Markee's instructions were vague, but it is clear that Walker resisted this initiative and flatly refused to visit high schools. Walker wrote Markee a memo saying that she was "philosophically opposed" to Markee's organizational plans and that she did not want to assume new recruiting duties or make recruiting trips to public high schools. In the memo, Walker also questioned whether Markee assigned these recruiting tasks to her solely because of her ethnicity, stating her perception that Markee was effectively trying to make her the UWP recruiting director for minority or African-American students. At a subsequent meeting in January 1998, Walker again refused to participate in student recruiting as Markee requested, despite Markee's insistence that the new initiatives were non-negotiable. Later that month, Markee sent Walker a memo suggesting that she make some recruiting visits in connection with a conference in Milwaukee. Walker did not attend the conference or make any recruiting visits.⁴

As a result of all these incidents, Walker's working relationship with Markee became strained and, in a meeting on March 4, 1998, Markee informed her that he would not be renewing her contract. Markee gave Walker the choice of either resigning or being non-renewed, allowing her to stay on through the end of her contract, and he offered to help her find a new job over the intervening 15 months. Markee's proffered reasons for not renewing Walker's contract, broadly speaking, were that (1) Walker was unwilling to carry out Markee's directives to engage in reorganization and recruitment activities, (2) her management...