Case Information
*1 Before JOLLY, GARZA, and OWEN, Circuit Judges.
E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiff – Appellant Martha Helen Haire (“Haire”) brought this gender discrimination suit against Louisiana State University (“LSU”), alleging the LSU Police Department violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. , as well as Louisiana state employment law, L A . R EV . S TAT . A NN . §§ 23:332(A)(1), 23:967, by failing to promote her to the position of Chief of Police and retaliating against her for filing complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) and Louisiana Commission for Human Rights (“LCHR”). The district court granted summary judgment in favor of LSU. Because Haire has established a prima facie case of discrimination and there is a genuine disputed issue of fact of whether LSU’s alleged non- discriminatory reason for not promoting Haire is pretextual, we hold that summary judgment on the gender discrimination claim was improper. Furthermore, because Haire has shown a conflict in substantial evidence regarding retaliation, we hold summary judgment was also improper on that second claim. We thus REVERSE, VACATE the district court’s judgment, and REMAND the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
I.
Haire has been a member of the LSU Police Department (“LSUPD”) since 1988. She began as an on-the-beat police officer but was promoted to roles with increased administrative responsibilities, including sergeant, lieutenant, captain, and, finally in 2005, major, a position she still holds. In 2007, Mr. Ricky Adams retired as Chief of Police at LSU, and Haire, believing herself to be a qualified candidate to replace him, [1] decided to apply for the new opening. LSU recruitment policy states that “[i]nternal promotions are strongly encouraged” and that “[e]fforts should be made to identify women and minority candidates for [interim] appointments.” Although Haire learned of the Chief opening and applied, she never heard from LSU regarding her application, and Mr. Gary Durham (“Durham”), Public Safety Director of LSU, was soon appointed temporary, “interim” Chief of Police. The position, however, remained open for another two years while LSU’s new Chancellor looked for a permanent replacement. While he was interim Chief, Durham performed a variety of actions which, according to Haire, demonstrated his bias against women. [2] After Durham was appointed and while the search for a permanent replacement continued, Haire allegedly was excluded from decision-making at LSUPD in which her job had previously allowed her to take part. More significantly, Haire claims she began to face hostility from a co-worker, Lawrence Rabalais (“Rabalais”), who was also a LSUPD major and who was competing with Haire for the promotion to Chief of Police. Rabalais allegedly slandered Haire in conjunction with a newspaper article written about Haire’s husband, and, of considerable relevance to this case, told a LSUPD co-worker that he wanted to “to get rid of” Haire and that, if a woman was appointed to the position of Chief, Rabalais would quit . In this suit, Haire alleges that Rabalais and Durham’s alleged misogynism was the reason LSU failed to promote her to the position of Chief. As the impending discussion will show, however, Rabalais’s alleged gender bias – rather than Durham’s – is more significant in this appeal, because Rabalais was involved in an investigation into Haire’s conduct which cost her the promotion, and Rabalais exercised some significant leverage over LSU’s decisionmaker.
In May 2009, an incident involving both Haire and Rabalais occurred, which Haire claims provided LSU with a convenient pretext not to promote her. Lawrence Rabalais. Nonetheless, four of Durham’s actions, as alleged by Haire, warrant particular mention: (1) One co-worker of Haire’s testified that Durham told him in 2009 that he “d[id] not want a woman in th[e] position” of Chief; (2) On an office door, Durham hung a poster, the imagery on which suggested “getting more efficiency out of women employees;” Durham laughed about the poster and showed it to female co-workers; (3) Durham sent “dumb-blonde” jokes to LSUPD employee Sharon Gonzalez; and (4) In 2009, when an article concerning problems the Louisiana Department of Revenue was having was published in the local newspaper, Durham responded by saying, “[T]hat’s what happens when you have a bunch of women in charge.” In 2008, shortly after her husband had been arrested for acts irrelevant to this case,
Rabalais allegedly notified LSUPD officers of a newspaper article about Haire’s husband, laughed openly about the husband’s arrest, and instructed that Haire’s name be mentioned in conjunction with the story about her husband. Rabalais’s alleged intent was to embarrass Haire.
Haire entered information into the police reporting system that made public an arrest of former LSU Dean Carolyn Collins, a high-profile figure on campus. Haire alleges she entered the information after being given a directive from Durham, her superior at the time. Although she believed the request to be somewhat irregular, she believed it to be lawful and carried out the order, resulting in the disclosure of Collins’s identity in conjunction with a crime. The incident seems to have developed into an internal scandal because Haire’s actions arguably violated police procedure, compromised the integrity of the LSUPD, and embarrassed the University. A series of three disciplinary procedures then followed.
First, the LSUPD held an investigative “244 hearing” to look into the Collins incident. As part of the investigation, Haire was interviewed by Rabalais, her competitor for the position of Chief, who allegedly had said he would quit if a woman were appointed to that role. Second, when the investigation into the Collins incident concluded, Haire received a “Coaching Letter,” in which the Chancellor of LSU found Haire’s actions “grossly inappropriate” and “most disturbing.” The letter acknowledged that Haire had received a directive to enter information into the reporting system from her superior but nonetheless found her acts to be a “violation of proper procedure,” which caused the Chancellor to “question [Haire’s] trustworthiness” and resulted in her future performance being “closely monitored.” Haire disagreed with allegations made in the Coaching Letter and sent a rebuttal to LSU authorities. Third, Rabalais gave Haire the lowest performance evaluation she has received in her twenty-two years with LSUPD, rating her below satisfactory for “job knowledge and technical skills.” As a result, Haire allegedly lost her supervisory responsibilities, certain subordinate personnel, her position as commander of Football Gameday Operations, and the ability to earn overtime pay. In her brief, she contends this “decimating reduction of her duties” essentially stripped her of “her rank, her command, and her job.”
Roughly three months after the Collins incident, Michael Martin, LSU’s Chancellor, allegedly under the influence of Durham, named Rabalais interim Chief of Police. But Rabalais lacked an undergraduate degree which the position required. This lack of qualification prompted Martin to announce that Rabalais would not assume “full Chief” status until after the completion of his degree requirements, whenever that might occur. Shortly thereafter in September 2009, and in the midst of disciplinary actions described above, Haire filed a Charge of Discrimination with the EEOC and LCHR, alleging illegal discrimination and retaliation. Finally, in January 2010, while Haire’s EEOC charge was presumably still pending, Rabalais was appointed permanent Chief of Police. To clarify the specific nature of Haire’s claims before the district court, the same that are before us on appeal: she contends her failure to receive the promotion (that was given to Rabalais) was motivated by gender-based discriminatory animus and was retaliation for her EEOC and LCHR complaints.
Haire filed suit against LSUPD, alleging in her amended petition that LSU is liable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. , as well as Louisiana employment law, for gender discrimination, retaliation, and reprisal. LSU filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that Haire could not show that her gender was a motivating factor in not promoting her to Chief of Police, and that she could not prevail on her retaliation or reprisal claims because there is no causal connection between her protected activity and any adverse employment action. The district court granted summary judgment on behalf of LSU on all claims. Haire timely appealed.
II.
We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment
de novo
.
Young
v. Equifax Credit Information Servs., Inc.
,
In employment discrimination cases, if the plaintiff establishes a
prima
facie
case of discrimination, the burden of production shifts to the employer to
provide a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the action.
Manning v.
Chevron Chem. Co., LLC
,
III.
We begin by addressing Haire’s first claim: that LSU violated Title VII by
discriminating against her on the basis of her gender when it failed to promote
her to the position of Chief of Police.
[5]
For the purposes of reviewing this
summary judgment motion, we will assume
arguendo
that the comments by
Durham and Rabalais do not constitute direct evidence of discrimination and,
consequently, that the usual
McDonnell Douglas
framework applies.
[6]
See
McDonnell Douglas
,
Under the
McDonnell Douglas
test, a Title VII plaintiff alleging gender
discrimination must show (1) that she is a member of a protected class; (2) that
she was qualified for the position sought; (3) she was subject to an adverse
employment action; and (4) she was replaced by someone outside her protected
class or was treated less favorably than other similarly situated employees
outside her class.
Fahim v. Marriott Hotel Servs.
,
The next step, therefore, is to assess whether LSU has provided a legitimate non-discriminatory justification for issuing the Coaching Letter and not promoting Haire. See Manning , 332 F.3d at 881. LSU has done so. It produced testimony that Haire was passed over for the promotion because Chancellor Martin decided she had violated police procedure during the Collins incident and thus could not be trusted with a significant increase in responsibility. Chancellor Martin, for example, testified that, in the context of reviewing some 1,500 police reports, he saw no report of a LSUPD official performing the same actions that got Haire in trouble, that is, entering the same information into the “police report posting” system twice. [8] He further testified that, in the wake of the Collins incident, he wanted Haire terminated because “if Major Haire knew how [the police report posting system] worked, and Major Haire knew what the policy was, that it struck [him] that Major Haire ought not to have two file numbers posted on that website”. Another employee, Marian Callier, also testified that Haire’s actions were “not proper procedure” and that, in her opinion, Haire should have been terminated for her actions in connection with the Collins incident. Taken together, these statements satisfy the employer’s burden: according to LSU, it did not promote Haire because of her misconduct during the Collins incident.
Because LSU has offered a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for its decision, the third step in the McDonnell Douglas analysis is for Haire to show, by rebutting the nondiscriminatory reason articulated by the employer, that LSU’s stated reason for the failure to promote was a pretext for gender discrimination. See Laxton v. Gap, Inc. , 333 F.3d 572, 578 (5th Cir. 2003). Pretext is the crux of Haire’s case; she provides evidence that she was following a lawful order from her supervisor and LSUPD had no formal written procedure that clearly prohibited her from obeying her supervisor’s command to file a second report. [9] For her, what followed from the Collins incident was all a charade that LSU undertook to cover its tracks in the sex discrimination suit it anticipated. By papering Haire’s files with disciplinary write-ups, it could protect itself with a sham justification for not promoting a female applicant who was more qualified. Haire’s theory, then, is that she was punished, based on wholly arbitrary and subjective criteria; for an act she had an obligation to perform; and the subsequent formal reprimand cost her the promotion. Haire points to the close timing between the selection of Rabalais as interim Chief and the issuance of the Coaching Letter, and argues the items of circumstantial evidence create genuine issues of material fact on the legitimacy and truth of LSU’s proffered justification for failing to select Haire for the promotion. We agree that Haire has produced evidence sufficient for a jury to rule in her favor on these underlying predicate points.
Regarding the Collins incident, for instance, the record shows that Durham, Haire’s supervisor at the time, gave her a command with which she was bound to comply. In his deposition, Durham testified that he gave Haire a lawful order. He acknowledged that, if she had not obeyed it, she could have been disciplined by the department. Rabalais, in his deposition, added that, assuming Haire had obeyed a lawful order from Durham, she would not have done anything wrong. And Marian Callier, finally, stated that Haire initially questioned Durham’s order as improper procedure but that he instructed her to enter the information into the police blotter anyway. This evidence is sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact. There is a bona fide question whether LSU’s purported justification for not promoting Haire, whose credentials were superior to those of Rabalais, was pretextual; and there is the further question whether Haire could have committed any official wrongdoing when she complied with her superior’s directives. [10]
IV.
However, this determination does not end the inquiry into LSU’s motive for not promoting Haire. As the district court and LSU point out, the ultimate decision to hire someone other than Haire was made by Chancellor Martin, not Rabalais, and the record does not indicate that Martin directly engaged in any discrimination or made any remarks regarding Haire’s gender. Under the “cat’s paw” theory of liability, however, it is possible that Rabalais’s remarks that he wanted “to get rid of” Haire and that he would resign if a female were appointed Chief may be imputed to Martin, the formal decisionmaker, if Rabalais played a role in the ultimate selection.
Under the four-factor test set forth in
Brown v. CSC Logic, Inc.
, 82 F.3d
651 (5th Cir. 1996), a workplace remark constitutes sufficient evidence of
discrimination if it is (a) related to the protected class of persons of which the
plaintiff is a member, (b) proximate in time to the employment decision at issue,
(c)
made by an individual with authority over the employment decision at issue
,
and (d) related to the employment decision at issue.
Auguster v. Vermillion
Parish Sch. Bd.
,
regarding a co-worker can be attributed to the workplace superior, ultimately the one in
charge of making employment decisions, when it is shown that the subordinate influenced the
superior’s decision or thought process.
See, e.g.
,
Staub v. Proctor Hospital
,
the Brown test because, under the third element, “neither Durham nor Rabalais had authority over the decision on the hiring of the Chief of Police.” The record, however, indicates Rabalais played a role in the investigation of Haire, was responsible for parts of the Coaching Letter, and reported to the formal decisionmaker, Chancellor Martin, about the “normal procedure” within the LSUPD with respect to entering information into the police report posting system. For example, in Martin’s deposition, the following exchange occurred:
Q: Did you[, Chancellor Martin] ever have any conversations with Rabalais about what happened in the Collins’ situation?
A: I asked – I asked Rabalais . . . about normal procedure within the Department.
Q: And what did he say?
A: He explained to me [that double numbering] . . . was not the way you do business.
Consequently, Chancellor Martin’s understanding was that:
A: . . . [I]f Major Haire knew how it worked, and Major Haire knew what the policy was , that it struck me that Major Haire ought not to have two file numbers posted on that website.
(Emphasis added.) Thus, the Chancellor, who was new to LSU at the time and unfamiliar with LSUPD policy, obtained from Rabalais what the “normal procedure” was and then attributed wrongdoing to Haire for violating what he understood, from Rabalais’s description, that procedure to be. This evidence sufficiently establishes, for the purposes of avoiding summary judgment, that Rabalais, a party demonstrating discriminatory animus, “ had influence . . . over the official decisionmaker . . . .” Russell v. McKinney Hosp. Venture , 235 F.3d 219, 226 (5th Cir. 2000) (emphasis added). In such a situation, our jurisprudence holds that “it is proper to impute [the] discriminatory attitude[] to [that] formal decisionmaker.” Id. Consequently, the district court erred by holding that Rabalais’s discriminatory animus cannot be imputed to Martin for the purpose of creating an issue of disputed fact.
V.
Haire also brings a retaliation claim under Title VII and a reprisal claim under the Louisiana Whistleblower Statute, L A . R EV . S TAT . A NN . § 23:967(A), [13] alleging that LSU retaliated against her by issuing the Coaching Letter and low performance evaluation, not promoting her, and changing her job duties. When we evaluate the Title VII retaliation claim infra herein, we dispose of the state law retaliation claim as well. [14]
In order to establish a
prima facie
case of retaliation under Title VII, a
plaintiff must show that (1) she engaged in activity protected by the statute, (2)
an adverse employment action occurred, and (3) a causal link exists between the
protected activity and the adverse employment action.
Evans v. City of Houston
,
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Haire, we hold that the
second prong also has been satisfied. Ever since a male officer, Bart Thompson,
was hired by LSUPD, Rabalais admits that he has ceased referring officers to
Major Haire and now instead refers them to Major Thompson when they have
questions regarding their duties. Sharon Gonzalez, who worked in LSU Risk
Management alongside Haire and Durham, testified that Haire is “alienated
from administration at the police department,” that “Rabalais doesn’t talk to
her,” and that the situation has “gotten worse since this lawsuit.” Gonzales
further said that Rabalais “demeans” Haire and “keeps her out of meetings.” In
sum, Gonzalez felt that LSU is “taking things away from [Haire].” Haire has
also become ineligible for overtime pay,
[16]
which has an effect on her income.
Thus, although it is probably hyperbole to say as Haire does in her brief, that
“virtually all of her job duties have been removed,” it is nonetheless true that
Haire has put forth modest evidence that her job has changed, that she has been
excluded from meetings, and that her pay may have been affected. Collectively,
these occurrences rise to the level of a Title VII “adverse employment action.”
See McCoy v. City of Shreveport
,
The third prong of the Title VII
prima facie
retaliation case is the “causal
connection” between the protected activity, in this case the filing of the EEOC
charge, and the adverse employment action. As proof that she has satisfied this
prong, Haire points to circumstantial evidence – the close timing (roughly three
months) between the EEOC charge and the naming of Rabalais as permanent
Chief.
See Clark County School Dist. v. Breeden
,
Even if Haire established a
prima facie
case of retaliation under Title VII,
she must respond to LSU’s alleged non-retaliatory reason for her failure to
receive a promotion and show that the retaliation was a “but for” cause of the
adverse employment decision.
Long v. Eastfield Coll.
,
VI.
We conclude that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to LSU because Haire has produced evidence sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact of whether LSUPD’s gender discrimination motivated the University’s decision to promote Rabalais instead of Haire. We further conclude there exists a genuine issue of material fact of whether the University retaliated against Haire for sending a rebuttal letter to the Chancellor and filing EEOC and LCHR complaints. The judgment of the district court dismissing Haire’s complaint is therefore REVERSED and VACATED, and the case is REMANDED for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
REVERSED, VACATED and REMANDED.
Notes
[1] The position required that all applicants possess, at minimum, a college degree. Haire has a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Mississippi and a Master’s Degree from Faulkner University. Additionally, Ms. Haire completed training at the FBI National Academy.
[2] As the discussion infra will show, Durham’s alleged actions, while troublesome, are not as crucial to Haire’s gender discrimination claim as the comments of another officer,
[4] Haire alleges that Rabalais “did not even complete the requirements of the online degree himself” and rather asked subordinate employees to do his online coursework in his stead.
[5] This claim is not time-barred. Under Title VII, a plaintiff alleging gender discrimination must file a complaint with the EEOC within 180 days of the alleged discriminatory act or within 300 days if the plaintiff has initially instituted proceedings with a state or local agency with authority to grant relief. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1). Discrimination claims brought under Louisiana law are subject to a one-year prescriptive period. L A . R EV . S TAT . A NN . § 23:303(D). Citing these provisions and considering the relevant dates in Haire’s suit, the district court held that any alleged discrimination claims based on LSU’s acts prior to December 3, 2008 are time-barred and any claims arising under Louisiana law based on LSU’s acts prior to March 25, 2009 have prescribed. Thus, to the extent that Haire argues that Durham’s promotion amounted to gender discrimination, that claim is time- barred because Durham’s appointment happened in 2007. The rest of her claims, however, are not time-barred. The alleged statements that Rabalais did not want a woman in the position of Chief, for example, began in 2007 and continued into 2008 and 2009, and, furthermore, the Collins incident happened in 2009.
[6] Although Haire argues that she has offered direct evidence and that McDonnell Douglas , therefore, does not apply, our discussion infra herein will indicate that we need not decide that question because, even under the indirect, circumstantial evidence analysis employed by the district court, summary judgment was premature.
[7] In addition to her federal discrimination claim under Title VII, Haire brings a state
law claim under L A . R EV . S TAT . A NN . § 23:332(A)(1), which states that it is “an unlawful
employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual,
or otherwise to discriminate against any individual, with respect to [her] compensation, or
[her] terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color,
religion, sex, or national origin.” Louisiana courts have looked to federal anti-discrimination
jurisprudence in interpreting Louisiana’s anti-discrimination statutes, s
ee, e.g., Plummer v.
Marriott Corp.
, 654 So. 2d 843, 848 (La. App. 4 Cir. 1995), and we have held that the
appropriate framework for analyzing a retaliation claim under the Louisiana Whistleblower
Statute is the same as that applied in Title VII retaliation cases,
see Smith v. A&T Solutions,
Inc.
, 90 F. App’x. 718, 723 (5th Cir. 2004);
cf. Smith v. Amedisys, Inc.
,
[8] Although neither party is very clear about this reporting system, it appears to work as follows: when a police report is first written, it is immediately posted on LSUPD’s “blotter” and website. In this case, after the initial police report involving former LSU Dean Carolyn Collins was posted, the report did not include any information of Collins’s actual arrest because, at the time, the arrest had not yet been made. When, however, Durham instructed Haire to enter the information regarding Collins into the system a second time, with a new file number, Haire included information of Collins’s arrest (which, by that later point, had occurred). When this information went public, an on-campus scandal involving Collins, a high- profile figure, resulted.
[9] LSU has not introduced any evidence suggesting the existence of such a formalized procedure.
[10] Haire need not introduce further evidence that the disciplinary measures that followed from the Collins incident were motivated by gender bias. Evidence demonstrating
[12] Martin began his position as Chancellor roughly eight months prior to the Collins incident.
[13] That statute states, in relevant part, “An employer shall not take reprisal against an employee who in good faith, and after advising the employer of the violation of the law: (1) Discloses or threatens to disclose a workplace act or practice that is in violation of the law . . . .” L A . R EV . S TAT . A NN .§ 23:967(A).
[14] See supra n.7.
[15] However, Haire’s allegation that the Coaching Letter constitutes retaliation or reprisal fails, since she did not engage in any protected activity prior to receiving the letter. The letter was issued on August 26, 2009, the EEOC and LCHR complaints were filed on September 29, 2009, and her rebuttal was sent on October 21, 2009. The letter, thus, could not be “retaliation” for an EEOC charge that had yet to be filed.
[16] The record contains some evidence substantiating this allegation: Haire produced an email in which Rabalais issued a directive to Haire stating “I do not want . . . you working event overtime.” As this decision may have affected Haire’s income, it arguably constitutes an adverse employment action. See Gomez v. Orleans Parish Sch. Bd. , 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17810, at 41 (“[P]laintiff’s claims of Title VII retaliation based on her . . . having been denied the opportunity to perform overtime work . . . might conceivably be classified as [an] adverse employment action[].”)
[17] The district court brushed by the adverse employment action prong of the retaliation analysis, focusing only on the performance evaluation Haire received and ultimately concluding that the evaluation did not satisfy the prong because it “did not result in demotion, decrease in pay, decrease in benefits, termination, nor has LSU relied on the evaluation.” But, as outlined above, the performance evaluation is not the only action at issue in the retaliation analysis. Also at issue are the alleged changes in Haire’s job duties and income that followed from the Collins incident but which were not directly tied to the performance evaluation.
[18] Having found the second prong not to be satisfied, the district court did not reach the third, “causal link” prong.