Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-07027/USCOURTS-caDC-13-07027-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 23, 2014 Decided December 19, 2014

No. 13-7027

STEPHANIE Y. BROWN,

APPELLANT

v.

ALLEN L. SESSOMS, PRESIDENT,

UNIVERSITY DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:12-cv-00799)

Donald M. Temple argued the cause and was on brief for 

the appellant.

Yoora Pak argued the cause and was on brief for the 

appellees.

Before: HENDERSON and SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

USCA Case #13-7027 Document #1528216 Filed: 12/19/2014 Page 1 of 15
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KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: Stephanie 

Brown was a law professor at the University of the District of 

Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law (DCSL). In 2009, 

she applied for tenure and a promotion. Her application for 

tenure was eventually rejected by then–Interim Provost 

Graeme Baxter (Baxter) and President Allen Sessoms 

(Sessoms), both of whom worked for the University of the 

District of Columbia (UDC). Dissatisfied, Brown sued the

Board of Trustees of UDC (Board) and Sessoms (collectively, 

UDC defendants). She alleged one federal claim and six

local-law claims. The UDC defendants removed the action to 

federal court and moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim. 

The district court granted the motion to dismiss in its entirety

and Brown appealed. We reverse and remand in part and 

affirm in part. 

I. Background

Brown, a black female, worked for DCSL in various 

capacities for more than two decades.

1

 At one time, DCSL 

and UDC were separate institutions governed by different 

boards. In 1995, DCSL entered into a Merger Agreement 

with UDC to become UDC’s law school and the UDC Board 

became statutorily bound by the terms of the Merger 

Agreement. See D.C. CODE § 38–1202.11(c). Several

provisions of the Merger Agreement regarding faculty 

appointments and service have been codified in D.C. municipal 

regulations. See generally D.C. MUN. REGS., tit. VIII, §§

1400–1424. The DCSL Faculty Handbook also incorporates

the merger and makes reference to the Merger Agreement. 

Brown submitted her application for tenure and a 

promotion to full professor on January 5, 2009. At that time, 

 1 Brown’s employment at the law school ended on May 15, 2012.

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Brown was an associate professor of law. The initial 

reviewing entity was DCSL’s Faculty Evaluation and 

Retention Committee (Committee). It voted to recommend 

Brown for tenure and transmitted her application to DCSL 

Dean Katherine Broderick (Broderick). Broderick initially 

recommended that the Committee withdraw its approval of 

Brown’s tenure application. Broderick’s concerns focused on 

both the sparseness and the quality of Brown’s legal 

scholarship, as Brown had only “one . . . published law review 

article” when she applied for tenure and a promotion. Am. 

Compl. ¶ 20. Once Broderick learned that a law journal

agreed to publish another one of Brown’s articles, however, 

she endorsed the Committee’s recommendation and forwarded

her approval of Brown’s application to Baxter.2

 

Notwithstanding Broderick’s endorsement, in June 2011,

Baxter rejected Brown’s tenure application. Baxter then

forwarded her rejection decision to Sessoms, who agreed that 

Brown should not be awarded tenure. Accordingly, Sessoms 

did not submit Brown’s tenure application to the Board. 

Around the same time that Brown applied for tenure, the 

UDC administration considered the tenure application of 

William McLain (McLain), a white male. Brown alleges that 

McLain had “no legal publications” but that Broderick did not 

insist that he satisfy the three-publication requirement, as 

Broderick had with Brown’s application. Am. Compl. ¶ 44. 

Despite McLain’s lack of publications, the Board awarded him

tenure and a promotion to full professor in 2010. Brown 

alleges that McLain won tenure because he was “credited for 

 2 It is unclear from the amended complaint whether the Committee and 

Broderick recommended Brown for tenure and promotion or tenure alone. 

Because the amended complaint speaks of an “Application for Tenure,” 

Am. Compl. ¶ 14, we assume that the Committee recommended Brown for 

tenure only.

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his various and sundry legal contributions” even though, 

according to Brown, she was “equally, if not more qualified 

than McLain” based on their respective tenure applications. 

Am. Compl. ¶¶ 49, 51.

With her application denied, Brown filed suit in D.C. 

Superior Court against the UDC defendants. They removed 

the action to federal court and Brown filed an amended 

complaint on May 22, 2012. Brown raised seven claims in her 

amended complaint: (1) breach of contract; (2) breach of the 

covenant of good faith and fair dealing; (3) wrongful 

termination; (4) race and gender discrimination in violation of 

the D.C. Human Rights Act (DCHRA), D.C. CODE §§ 2–1401,

et seq.; (5) race discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 

1981; (6) negligent supervision; and (7) negligent infliction of 

emotional distress.3

 The UDC defendants moved to dismiss 

all seven counts for failure to state a claim. See FED.R.CIV. P.

12(b)(6).

In its decision, the district court first addressed Sessoms’s 

status. It held that the claims against him in his official

capacity were duplicative of the claims against the Board so it 

treated them all as against the Board. It also dismissed the 

claims against President Sessoms in his individual capacity 

because, as Brown conceded, he was shielded from liability by 

qualified immunity. See generally Bame v. Dillard, 637 F.3d 

380, 384 (D.C. Cir. 2011). Brown challenges neither of these 

rulings on appeal. The district court then proceeded to the 

merits of each claim and dismissed all seven counts, holding

that Brown failed to plead sufficient facts to state a claim for 

 3 Brown does not press her claim for negligent infliction of emotional 

distress on appeal. Brown has also given up her wrongful termination 

claim by failing to include her argument for this claim in her opening brief. 

City of Waukesha v. EPA, 320 F.3d 228, 250 n.22 (D.C. Cir. 2003).

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relief. See FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6). Brown timely appealed. 

Our jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 

II. Analysis

“We review the grant of a motion to dismiss de novo.” 

Ralls Corp. v. Comm. on Foreign Inv., 758 F.3d 296, 314 (D.C. 

Cir. 2014) (internal citation omitted). We accept the factual 

allegations in Brown’s complaint “as true” and we “draw all 

inferences in her favor.” Harris v. Ladner, 127 F.3d 1121, 

1123 (D.C. Cir. 1997). “[A] plaintiff’s obligation to provide 

the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than 

labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the 

elements of a cause of action will not do.” Bell Atlantic Corp. 

v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (internal quotation 

marks and alterations omitted). Moreover, a plaintiff must 

identify “factual allegations” that “raise a right to relief above 

the speculative level.” Id. In short, the plaintiff must provide 

“factual content [in her complaint] that allows the court to draw 

the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the 

misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 

(2009). 

A. Section 1981

Although Brown pleaded a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, 

neither the parties nor the district court evaluated the claim in 

light of the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Jett v. 

Dallas Independent School District, 491 U.S. 701 (1989). In 

Jett, the Supreme Court considered whether section 1981 

“provides an independent federal cause of action for damages 

against local governmental entities” and other state actors.4

 

 4 Section 1981 states, in pertinent part, that “[a]ll persons within the 

jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and 

Territory to make and enforce contracts.” 42 U.S.C. § 1981(a). This 

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Jett, 491 U.S. at 705. The Court noted that the text of section

1981 is silent on this question, id. at 711–12, so it engaged in 

an exhaustive review of the statute’s legislative history as well 

as the history of related statutes and constitutional 

amendments. See id. at 713–31. It concluded “that Congress 

intended that the explicit remedial provisions of [42 U.S.C.] § 

1983 be controlling in the context of damages actions brought 

against state actors alleging violation of the rights declared in § 

1981,” id. at 731, and therefore held that “the express ‘action at 

law’ provided by § 1983 . . . provides the exclusive federal 

damages remedy for the violation of the rights guaranteed by § 

1981 when the claim is pressed against a state actor.” Id. at 

735.

There is a split among our sister circuits as to whether Jett

was nullified by the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102–

166, § 2, 105 Stat. 1071, 1071–72 (Act). Seven courts of 

appeals have held that the Act did not overrule Jett, with only 

the Ninth Circuit reaching the contrary conclusion. Compare 

Campbell v. Forest Pres. Dist. of Cook Cnty., Ill., 752 F.3d 

665, 671 (7th Cir. 2014) (“We now join the overwhelming 

weight of authority and hold that Jett remains good law, and 

consequently, § 1983 remains the exclusive remedy for 

violations of § 1981 committed by state actors.”); McGovern v. 

City of Philadelphia, 554 F.3d 114, 122 (3d Cir. 2009); 

Arendale v. City of Memphis, 519 F.3d 587, 599 (6th Cir. 

2008); Bolden v. City of Topeka, 441 F.3d 1129, 1137 (10th 

Cir. 2006); Oden v. Oktibbeha Cnty., 246 F.3d 458, 464 (5th 

Cir. 2001); Butts v. Cnty. of Volusia, 222 F.3d 891, 894 (11th 

Cir. 2000); Dennis v. Cnty. of Fairfax, 55 F.3d 151, 156 n.1 

 

provision “protects the equal right of ‘[a]ll persons within the jurisdiction of 

the United States’ to ‘make and enforce contracts’ without respect to race.” 

Domino’s Pizza, Inc. v. McDonald, 546 U.S. 470, 474 (2006) (quoting 42 

U.S.C. § 1981(a)). 

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(4th Cir. 1995), with Fed’n of African Am. Contractors v. City 

of Oakland, 96 F.3d 1204, 1214 (9th Cir. 1996).

A well-reasoned decision from a district court in our

Circuit has addressed the issue. Sledge v. Dist. of Columbia, 

869 F. Supp. 2d 140 (D.D.C. 2012). Sledge noted that the Act

amended section 1981 to protect “against racial discrimination 

by private and state actors.” Id. at 144. But this language 

“still only addresses substantive rights” and section 1983 

remains “the only provision to expressly create a remedy

against persons acting under color of state law.” Id.

(emphasis added). The distinction is significant because 

rights and remedies are separate concepts. See id. at 144–45; 

see also Chelentis v. Luckenbach S.S. Co., Inc., 247 U.S. 372, 

384 (1918) (“The distinction between rights and remedies is 

fundamental. A right is a well founded or acknowledged 

claim; a remedy is the means employed to enforce a right or 

redress an injury.”).

The text of the Act as well as its legislative history also 

forecloses any argument that the Congress sought to nullify 

Jett. “The Civil Rights Act and its legislative history name 

several Supreme Court decisions which the Act is intended to 

overrule, but Jett was not identified even though it was decided 

less than two years before Congress acted.” Sledge, 869 F. 

Supp. 2d at 145. The fact that Jett appears nowhere in the Act 

or the committee reports that preceded it “belies” any argument

that the Congress “intended to repeal” the decision. Id. We 

agree with Sledge and join our sister circuits (minus the Ninth 

Circuit) in concluding that the Act’s amendments to section 

1981 did not nullify Jett. 

 

Applying Jett’s holding to Brown’s section 1981 claim 

appears straightforward. Brown alleged a violation of section 

1981 only, not section 1983. The UDC defendants, however, 

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are plainly state actors. University of the District of 

Columbia, http://tinyurl.com/pn27s7u (last visited Dec. 5, 

2014) (UDC is the “only public university in the nation’s 

capital”); Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n v. Tarkanian, 488 

U.S. 179, 192 (1988) (“A state university without question is a 

state actor.”). Jett, then, purportedly bars Brown from 

bringing a section 1981 claim against the UDC defendants 

without also making a claim under section 1983.

The Supreme Court, however, has recently made clear that 

a plaintiff’s failure to invoke section 1983 is ordinarily not a 

ground to dismiss his complaint. In Johnson v. City of Shelby, 

135 S. Ct. 346 (2014), the plaintiffs sued Shelby, MS, alleging 

a violation of their Fourteenth Amendment rights. Id. at 346. 

The district court dismissed their complaint for “failure to 

invoke 42 U.S.C. § 1983” and the Fifth Circuit affirmed. Id.

The Supreme Court reversed and held that “no heightened 

pleading rule requires plaintiffs seeking damages for violations 

of constitutional rights to invoke § 1983 expressly in order to 

state a claim.” Id. at 347. The defendant had notice of the 

claims against it because the plaintiffs “stated simply, 

concisely, and directly events that, they alleged, entitled them 

to damages from the city.” Id. On remand, the Court stated,

the plaintiffs should be allowed “to add to their complaint a 

citation to § 1983.” Id. 

We believe Johnson controls our resolution of Brown’s 

section 1981 claim. The fact that Brown presses a statutory

claim, whereas the Johnson plaintiffs raised a constitutional 

claim, does not appear to us to affect its applicability. 

Johnson makes clear that once those plaintiffs stated the facts

allegedly giving rise to liability, they were not obligated to 

“invoke section 1983 expressly in order to state a claim.” Id. 

Because Brown’s section 1981 claim remains viable, we turn 

to the merits of that claim.

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Section 1981 protects “the equal right of ‘[a]ll persons 

within the jurisdiction of the United States’ to ‘make and 

enforce contracts’ without respect to race.” Domino’s Pizza, 

546 U.S. at 474. To press a section 1981 claim, a plaintiff 

must identify rights “under the existing (or proposed) contract 

that he wishes to make and enforce.” Id. at 479–80. We 

assume without deciding that the DCSL Faculty Handbook,

including its reference to the Merger Agreement, constitutes a 

valid contract. See McConnell v. Howard Univ., 818 F.2d 58, 

62–63 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (“It is well established that, under 

District of Columbia law, an employee handbook such as the 

Howard University Faculty Handbook defines the rights and

obligations of the employee and the employer, and is a contract 

enforceable by the courts.”); Howard Univ. v. Best, 484 A.2d 

958, 970 (D.C. 1984) (plaintiff’s contract consisted of, among 

other things, faculty “Handbook’s statement of employment 

policies”).

To evaluate a section 1981 claim, “courts use the three-step

McDonnell Douglas framework for establishing racial 

discrimination under Title VII.” Carney v. Am. Univ., 151 

F.3d 1090, 1092–93 (D.C. Cir. 1998). Under that framework, 

a plaintiff without direct evidence of discrimination as it relates 

to contractual rights must first plead a prima facie case by 

establishing “that (1) he is a member of a protected class, (2) he 

suffered an adverse employment action, and (3) the 

unfavorable action gives rise to an inference of discrimination 

(that is, an inference that his employer took the action because 

of his membership in the protected class).” Forkkio v. Powell, 

306 F.3d 1127, 1130 (D.C. Cir. 2002). A plaintiff can raise an 

inference of discrimination by showing “that she was treated 

differently from similarly situated employees who are not part 

of the protected class.” George v. Leavitt, 407 F.3d 405, 412 

(D.C. Cir. 2005). 

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If the plaintiff makes out a prima facie case, the burden 

shifts to the employer to articulate “some legitimate, 

nondiscriminatory reason” for the employment action, which 

the plaintiff can rebut by proving, under a preponderance of the 

evidence standard, that the employer’s justification is merely 

pretext for discrimination. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. 

Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802–804 (1973). We have been clear, 

however, that “[a]t the motion to dismiss stage, the district 

court cannot throw out a complaint even if the plaintiff did not 

plead the elements of a prima facie case.” Brady v. Office of 

Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 493 (D.C. Cir. 2008). 

We believe Brown has pleaded enough to make out a claim 

under section 1981. The crux of her argument is that an 

inference of discrimination arose when the UDC defendants 

applied “less stringent tenure criteria” to McLain’s tenure 

application than they did to Brown’s submission. Am. 

Compl. ¶ 75. DCSL has three “distinct qualifications for 

tenure: teaching, scholarship and service.” Id. ¶ 15. They

are spelled out in the Faculty Handbook. The scholarship 

component requires that an applicant’s tenure application 

include three published law review articles. Although Brown 

did not have three published articles when she submitted her 

application, she alleges that McLain’s tenure submission was 

similarly deficient. McLain, however, was apparently 

“credited for his various and sundry legal contributions” to 

make up for his lack of scholarship, id. ¶ 49, while Brown 

received no similar credit despite her “demonstrated academic 

accomplishments and a record of selfless and thankless 

contributions to the law school.” Id. ¶ 50. 

Taken together, Brown has pleaded enough facts that “raise 

[her] right to relief above the speculative level.” Twombly, 

550 U.S. at 555. She identified a similarly-situated employee 

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who is not in her protected class and explained why she has 

equivalent qualifications. Neither she nor McLain submitted 

three published law review articles with their tenure 

applications and they were apparently comparable aliunde

their publications based, in Brown’s case, on her years of 

service to DCSL through administrative assistance and 

academic teaching. Brown, however, was not awarded a 

tenure contract. Drawing all inferences in her favor, we 

believe that Brown’s complaint sufficiently makes out that she 

and McLain had similar records with regard to teaching and 

service. Because both also failed to meet the publication 

requirement, their tenure applications appear, from the 

complaint, to be on comparable footing. The fact that McLain 

won tenure and Brown did not allows us “to draw the 

reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the 

misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Accordingly, 

we reverse the district court’s dismissal of Brown’s section 

1981 claim.5

B. Local-Law Claims

After dismissing Brown’s federal claim, the district court

exercised its discretion to retain and decide Brown’s pendent 

local-law claims. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a) (giving district 

courts “supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that are 

so related to claims in the action within” district court’s 

“original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or 

controversy under Article III of the United States 

Constitution”); see also Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 

514 (2006) (“[W]hen a court grants a motion to dismiss for 

failure to state a federal claim, the court generally retains

discretion to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, pursuant to 28 

 5 As Johnson indicates, Brown should be allowed on remand to add a 

citation to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to her complaint.

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U.S.C. § 1367, over pendent state-law claims.”); Saksenasingh 

v. Sec’y of Educ., 126 F.3d 347, 351 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (same). 

Our review of the district court’s dismissal of Brown’s 

local-law claims follows.

1. DCHRA

The DCHRA proscribes discriminatory actions taken by 

employers based on, inter alia, race and sex. D.C. CODE § 2–

1402.11(a). We use the “burden-shifting framework 

established for Title VII cases in McDonnell Douglas” to 

evaluate claims under the DCHRA. McFadden v. Ballard 

Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, 611 F.3d 1, 3 (D.C. Cir. 

2010). This is the same framework we used to evaluate 

Brown’s section 1981 claim. See supra Part II.A.; see also 

McFadden, 611 F.3d at 3 (McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting 

framework is used to evaluate both DCHRA and section 1981

claims). We, unsurprisingly, reach the same conclusion here 

and reverse the district court’s dismissal of Brown’s DCHRA 

claim. 

2. Breach of Contract

Brown’s breach of contract claim is premised on her belief

that the Board—not Sessoms or Baxter—was, under the 

Merger Agreement, the final entity to review her tenure 

application. “To prevail on a claim of breach of contract, a 

party must establish (1) a valid contract between the parties; (2) 

an obligation or duty arising out of the contract; (3) a breach of 

that duty; and (4) damages caused by breach.” Tsintolas 

Realty Co. v. Mendez, 984 A.2d 181, 187 (D.C. 2009). 

Assuming arguendo that the Faculty Handbook and the Merger 

Agreement constitute valid contracts, Brown’s contractual 

claim fails because she has not alleged any facts showing that 

the UDC defendants breached a contractual obligation.

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The Merger Agreement outlines the process for reviewing

DCSL tenure applications:

The Faculty Evaluation and Retention 

Committee shall evaluate faculty candidates for

award of tenure and make recommendations to 

the Dean. Based on the recommendation of 

the Faculty Evaluation and Retention 

Committee, the Dean will recommend faculty 

candidates for promotion and tenure to the 

Provost, who shall forward those 

recommendations to the President with his or 

her own recommendations. The provisions of 

Chapter 14 of the DCSL Rules shall be 

amended to provide for the Dean to forward 

recommendations for promotion and tenure to 

the President of the University, through the 

Provost, for final approval.

Joint Appendix 93. This language makes clear that the Board 

is not required to review Brown’s tenure application. The

Committee is to forward its recommendation to the Provost, 

who then forwards the Committee’s recommendation, as well 

as her own, to the President. 

Brown correctly notes that the Merger Agreement provides

that D.C. municipal regulations must be amended to provide 

final approval authority to the President. Appellant Br. 18. 

She also notes that no such amendment occurred and, without 

it, Brown alleges that Sessoms was contractually obligated by 

the Merger Agreement to forward her tenure application to the 

Board for final approval. We disagree. The Board is bound 

“by the terms of the Merger Agreement.” D.C. CODE § 38–

1202.11(c). The Agreement’s call to conform municipal

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regulations does not affect the President’s authority vis-à-vis

tenure applications. It provides that the President has final 

approval over tenure applications, adding only that local 

regulations should conform. We therefore affirm the 

dismissal of Brown’s breach of contract claim. 

3. Good Faith and Fair Dealing

All contracts in the District of Columbia “contain an 

implied duty of good faith and fair dealing, which means that 

neither party shall do anything which will have the effect of 

destroying or injuring the right of the other party to receive the 

fruits of the contract.” Paul v. Howard Univ., 754 A.2d 297, 

310 (D.C. 2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). A party 

breaches this covenant if it “evades the spirit of the contract, 

willfully renders imperfect performance, or interferes with 

performance by the other party” to the contract. Id. A party 

does not breach “its duty of fair dealing when reasonable 

persons in the parties’ shoes would have expected the contract 

to be performed as it was.” Adler v. Abramson, 728 A.2d 86, 

90–91 (D.C. 1999).

We believe Paul v. Howard University, supra, controls our 

resolution of this issue. In Paul, the plaintiff sued Howard 

University when her tenure application was rejected. Paul, 

754 A.2d at 301. She alleged breach of contract and breach of 

the covenant of good faith and fair dealing but both claims

were rejected. Id. at 310–11. The court was unpersuaded by 

the plaintiff’s good faith and fair dealing claim principally 

because she “had no contractual right to receive tenure 

automatically” and because the defendants “acted within the 

standards set forth in the handbooks when considering her 

tenure applications.” Id.

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Like the plaintiff in Paul, Brown had no contractual right to 

receive tenure. Additionally, Sessoms was not obligated 

under the Merger Agreement to forward her tenure application 

to the Board. See supra Part II.B.2. Accordingly, the UDC 

defendants did not breach the covenant of good faith and fair 

dealing by failing to do something they had no obligation to do. 

Because “reasonable persons in the parties’ shoes would have 

expected the contract to be performed as it was,” Adler, 728 

A.2d at 90–91, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of 

Brown’s good faith and fair dealing claim. 

 

4. Negligent Supervision

An employer engages in negligent supervision under D.C. 

law if it “knew or should have known its employee behaved in 

a dangerous or otherwise incompetent manner, and that the 

employer, armed with that actual or constructive knowledge, 

failed to adequately supervise the employee.” Godfrey v. 

Iverson, 559 F.3d 569, 571 (D.C. Cir. 2009). Brown’s 

complaint contains no facts from which it can be inferred that 

the Board “knew or should have known” that Sessoms or 

Baxter would not follow protocol, assuming arguendo either 

(or both) did so. In short, Brown does not “raise a right to 

relief above the speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555.

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the dismissal of 

Brown’s DCHRA and section 1981 claims and remand those 

claims for further proceedings consistent with this opinion

(including an opportunity for Brown to amend her complaint in 

accordance with Johnson). We affirm the dismissal of 

Brown’s remaining claims for the reasons stated herein.

So ordered.

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