Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-13-01857/USCOURTS-ca7-13-01857-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 

---

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 13-1857

ADAM A. LOCKE,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

MYA HAESSIG,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 10-CV-430-JPS—J.P. Stadtmueller, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED OCTOBER 31, 2014 — DECIDED JUNE 5, 2015

____________________

Before POSNER, ROVNER, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff Adam Locke sued defendant Mya Haessig, a state official, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 

for violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth 

Amendment. Locke alleges Haessig is liable because of how 

she responded to his complaint that her subordinate, a parole officer, was sexually harassing Locke, a parolee. Locke 

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has provided evidence that Haessig was told of the harassment, failed to intervene or investigate, and then threatened 

to retaliate against Locke for complaining.

The district court denied Haessig’s motion for summary 

judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. Haessig 

brought this interlocutory appeal, arguing that even Locke’s 

version of the facts shows that she lacked the required intent 

to discriminate. Haessig contends that because the facts 

show only that she failed to intervene to stop her subordinate from sexually harassing Locke, she could not have intended to discriminate and therefore could not have violated 

the Equal Protection Clause as a matter of law.

We affirm the denial of qualified immunity. Accepting 

Locke’s version of the facts, we conclude that a reasonable 

jury could return a verdict for Locke. Haessig was told of 

Locke’s complaints of sexual harassment but never met with 

him to discuss the allegations or tried to protect him from 

further harassment. According to Locke, after hearing of his 

complaint, Haessig expressed anger toward Locke and said 

he would never get off of his electronic ankle monitor until 

he was discharged from parole. A reasonable jury could infer 

from these facts—which show not only a failure to intervene 

but also a threat of retaliation in response to the complaint—

that Haessig was acting with the intent to discriminate. This 

is sufficient for liability under current law and was clearly 

established law in 2008 when these events took place. 

Haessig had reasonable notice that her alleged actions were 

unlawful and so is not entitled to qualified immunity.

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No. 13-1857 3

I. Factual and Procedural History

Because this is an interlocutory appeal from the district 

court’s denial of qualified immunity, we have appellate jurisdiction over only legal questions. Whitlock v. Brueggemann, 

682 F.3d 567, 573 (7th Cir. 2012). We do not have jurisdiction 

to consider record issues such as whether the record sets 

forth a genuine issue of fact for trial. Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 

304, 313 (1995) (district court’s determination that summary 

judgment record raised a genuine issue of fact concerning 

defendants’ involvement in the alleged beating of plaintiff 

“was not a ‘final decision’ within the meaning of the relevant 

statute”); Whitlock, 682 F.3d at 573.

For purposes of this appeal, then, we accept the district 

court’s account of plaintiff’s version of the facts to frame our 

review of the purely legal question presented: whether a 

reasonable jury could infer from Haessig’s alleged actions 

that she had the intent to discriminate on the basis of sex. 

See, e.g., White v. Gerardot, 509 F.3d 829, 833 (7th Cir. 2007) 

(appellate court may look to the plaintiff’s version of the 

facts or the facts the district court assumed as the source of 

undisputed facts for a qualified immunity appeal).1

 1 Locke’s version of events is drawn from several documents that he 

submitted when he was representing himself in the district court. We 

draw some of these facts from his complaint, which “is the equivalent of 

an affidavit for summary judgment purposes” because he verified it under penalty of perjury. See, e.g., Devbrow v. Gallegos, 735 F.3d 584, 587 

(7th Cir. 2013). We also rely on facts in his memorandum opposing 

summary judgment that he swore to under penalty of perjury and were 

based on his personal knowledge. See Alvarado v. Litscher, 267 F.3d 648, 

651 (7th Cir. 2001) (pro se filings should be “liberally construed”). FinalCase: 13-1857 Document: 47 Filed: 06/05/2015 Pages: 19
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A. Locke’s Complaint of Sexual Harassment

Plaintiff Adam Locke was under the supervision of the 

Wisconsin Department of Corrections from 2007 to 2009, 

some of the time as a prisoner in custody and some of the 

time as a parolee. Locke’s primary parole agent during this 

period was Wendy Schwartz, but another agent, defendant 

Anthony Flores, occasionally filled in for Schwartz. Flores 

sexually harassed Locke while supervising his parole from 

May 2007 to the summer of 2009. Flores propositioned Locke 

for sex, made unwanted physical advances, and offered to 

release him from electronic monitoring if he would allow 

Flores to take nude photos of him. 

Locke complained to Agent Schwartz about the harassment when she visited him in jail sometime between December 2007 and February 2008. Schwartz told her supervisor, defendant Mya Haessig, about Locke’s complaint. 

Haessig in turn called the regional office and told a regional 

chief about the complaint. The regional chief directed 

Haessig to have Agent Schwartz obtain a written statement 

from Locke. 

Neither Haessig nor Schwartz ever followed up with 

Locke to obtain a written statement. Haessig took no further 

action to address the complaint of sexual harassment. 

Haessig had the authority to transfer Locke to another facility away from Flores but did not do so. Haessig never documented the complaint in Locke’s DOC file.2

 

ly, we supplement these facts with those facts contained in Haessig’s 

affidavit and responses to interrogatories that Locke does not dispute.

2 Haessig contends that she spoke with Locke about the complaint 

and that he told her he did not want to file a formal complaint or talk 

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No. 13-1857 5

Flores heard about Locke’s complaint, probably from 

Agent Schwartz. Flores called Locke into his office and told 

him to be careful about what he said and to whom he said it. 

Flores continued to harass Locke sexually. After Locke had 

complained about harassment, Haessig was irritated with 

and negative toward him. Haessig told Locke he would never be released from his ankle monitor until he was discharged from parole. Agent Schwartz acknowledged to 

Locke that Haessig was targeting him for harassment. 

Flores’s harassment of Locke finally ended in the summer 

of 2009 when the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated Flores in response to complaints from several other parolees. Haessig did not play a significant role in that investigation. Flores resigned from office in June 2010 in the midst 

of investigation. 

B. Procedural History

Locke filed suit pro se against Flores in May 2010. The 

district court screened the complaint and found that it plausibly alleged that a state employee had sexually harassed 

Locke in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Flores was 

served with the complaint but never appeared. The clerk of 

the court has entered a default against Flores, and the district court has said it intends to enter a default judgment 

against Flores after Locke has an opportunity to prove the 

amount of his damages. 

 

about the incident any further. In this appeal from a denial of summary 

judgment based on qualified immunity, we must accept as true Locke’s 

sworn statement that neither Haessig nor Schwartz ever spoke with him 

about the sexual harassment after his initial complaint. See White, 509 

F.3d at 833.

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The district court then allowed Locke to amend his complaint to add Haessig as a defendant. Locke also added two 

new claims against both Flores and Haessig, alleging that 

Flores’s sexual harassment and Haessig’s inadequate response amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and a denial of substantive 

due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Haessig’s motion for summary judgment on the equal protection claim based on qualified immunity was denied, and 

this interlocutory appeal followed.

II. Analysis

We review de novo a district court’s denial of summary 

judgment based on qualified immunity. Levin v. Madigan, 692 

F.3d 607, 622 (7th Cir. 2012). We can affirm on any ground 

supported by the record so long as the issue was raised and 

the non-moving party had a fair opportunity to contest the 

issue in the district court. Hester v. Indiana State Dep’t of 

Health, 726 F.3d 942, 946 (7th Cir. 2013); Cardoso v. Robert 

Bosch Corp., 427 F.3d 429, 432 (7th Cir. 2005).

The defense of qualified immunity “protects government 

officials ‘from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have 

known.’” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009), quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). In evaluating whether a state actor is entitled to summary judgment 

for qualified immunity, we consider (1) whether the facts, 

taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, show that 

the defendant violated a constitutional right; and (2) whether that constitutional right was clearly established at the time 

of the alleged violation. Gonzalez v. City of Elgin, 578 F.3d 526, 

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No. 13-1857 7

540 (7th Cir. 2009), citing Pearson, 555 U.S. at 232, and Saucier 

v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001).

We may address the two prongs of the qualified immunity inquiry in whichever order seems better for the case. See 

Whitlock v. Brueggemann, 682 F.3d at 580. Here we take the 

unusual step of beginning with the second prong because 

our discussion of the state of the law in 2007 and 2008 provides helpful context for analysis of later developments in 

the law.

A. Clearly Established Law in 2007 and 2008

If we accept the facts asserted by Locke, Haessig’s actions 

violated clearly established law at time of the violation. In 

2007 and 2008, when the events took place, it was well established that sexual harassment by a state actor under color of 

state law violated the Equal Protection Clause and was actionable under § 1983. Valentine v. City of Chicago, 452 F.3d 

670, 682 (7th Cir. 2006); Bohen v. City of East Chicago, 799 F.2d 

1180, 1185–86 (7th Cir. 1986). It was also clear that a supervisor could be held liable for a subordinate’s sexual harassment if the plaintiff could show either intentional sex discrimination or a conscious failure to protect the plaintiff 

from abusive conditions created by subordinates amounting 

to intentional discrimination. Valentine, 452 F.3d at 683–84; 

Bohen, 799 F.2d at 1187; see also T.E. v. Grindle, 599 F.3d 583, 

588 (7th Cir. 2010) (“At the time of the events at issue in this 

litigation [from 2001 to 2005], it was clearly established in 

this circuit that a supervisor could be held liable for participating in or deliberately turning a blind eye to the equal protection violation of her subordinate.”).

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By 2007, we had recognized that males who were sexually harassed could bring equal protection claims if they could 

show intentional discrimination on the basis of their sex. We 

reversed a grant of summary judgment where a male plaintiff presented evidence that school officials ignored his complaints of sexual harassment by male classmates but consistently punished the harassers when similar complaints were 

made by girls. Nabozny v. Podlesny, 92 F.3d 446, 454–56 (7th 

Cir. 1996).

It was also well established in 2007 and 2008, however, 

that a supervisor was not liable under a respondeat superior

theory for constitutional torts committed by a subordinate. 

Jones v. City of Chicago, 856 F.2d 985, 992 (7th Cir. 1988). And a 

merely negligent failure to intervene was not enough to 

show discrimination that violated the Equal Protection 

Clause. See Nanda v. Moss, 412 F.3d 836, 842 (7th Cir. 2005) 

(supervisor would be liable if plaintiffs showed he was “deliberately indifferent in facilitating” discriminatory termination).

A reasonable official in Haessig’s position would have 

known that her alleged conduct was unconstitutional. See

Hernandez v. Foster, 657 F.3d 463, 473–74 (7th Cir. 2011) (“A 

right is clearly established when, at the time of the challenged conduct, the contours of a right are sufficiently clear 

that every reasonable official would have understood that 

what he is doing violates that right.”) (internal quotation 

marks and modifications omitted). Accepting Locke’s version of the facts, Haessig was more than merely negligent. 

She failed to intervene or investigate in response to Locke’s 

complaint, and she then threatened to retaliate against him 

for complaining of harassment.

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The facts of Valentine are similar to this case and show 

that Haessig was on notice her alleged conduct was unconstitutional. In Valentine, the plaintiff, a state employee, complained several times to her supervisor that a co-worker was 

sexually harassing her by making profane comments about 

her body, making obscene gestures to her, and caressing her 

arm and shoulder. Each time the plaintiff complained, the 

supervisor told the harassing co-worker to stop, yet the harassment continued. The court held that a “reasonable juror 

could find under these circumstances that [the supervisor’s] 

response was obviously inadequate, and [he] was aware that 

to prevent the harassment he would have to take more severe action.” Valentine, 452 F.3d at 684. The supervisor further told the plaintiff that she was making trouble by reporting the harassment up the chain of command. Id. The court 

concluded that a jury could infer that the supervisor had 

“consciously chosen not to protect” the plaintiff and that 

there was a material question of fact as to whether the supervisor had intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff, precluding summary judgment. Id.

Locke alleges that Haessig did even less in response to 

Locke’s complaint of harassment than the supervisor in Valentine. The supervisor in Valentine told the harasser to stop 

each time the plaintiff complained. Even then we found that 

a jury could infer the supervisor was intentionally discriminating by failing to do more when that response was clearly 

inadequate. In contrast, we must assume Haessig did nothing to intervene to stop the harassment in response to 

Locke’s complaint. While she reported the complaint to her 

supervisor, she failed to follow up with Locke as her supervisor directed and never spoke to Locke about the complaint. Locke presents further evidence that Haessig threatCase: 13-1857 Document: 47 Filed: 06/05/2015 Pages: 19
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ened to retaliate against him for making the complaint by 

threatening to keep his ankle monitor on for the duration of 

his parole. As in Valentine, a jury could infer that Haessig had 

“consciously chosen not to protect” Locke from the sexual 

harassment and on that basis hold Haessig liable for intentional sex discrimination. See id. at 684.

After Valentine, it should have been clear to a reasonable 

officer that Haessig’s alleged conduct was unlawful in this 

situation. See Pearson, 555 U.S. at 231; Foster, 657 F.3d at 473–

74. Haessig cannot claim the protection of qualified immunity on the ground that she had no notice that her actions were 

unlawful.

B. Constitutional Violation Under Current Law

Haessig could still be entitled to qualified immunity if 

the undisputed facts show that her conduct violates no constitutional right under current law. In other words, if developments in constitutional law since 2008 mean that Haessig’s 

conduct did not violate any constitutional right, she would 

be entitled to summary judgment even if her conduct was 

unlawful under prevailing law in 2008. Haessig contends 

that her conduct violated no constitutional right because the 

facts show that she did not have the intent to discriminate 

that Ashcroft v. Iqbal, decided in 2009, now requires for supervisory liability for constitutional violations. 556 U.S. 662, 

676–77 (2009).

In Iqbal, the complaint alleged in relevant part that the 

Attorney General and Director of the FBI adopted an unconstitutional policy subjecting thousands of Arab Muslim men 

to harsh conditions of confinement in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks because of their race, religion, or naCase: 13-1857 Document: 47 Filed: 06/05/2015 Pages: 19
No. 13-1857 11

tional origin. Id. at 667–69. The plaintiff brought his claim of 

unconstitutional discrimination as a Bivens action, the federal analog to suits brought against state officials under § 1983. 

See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 675–76, citing Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 

250, 254 n.2 (2006); see generally Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). The plaintiff argued 

that the defendants could be liable for “knowledge and acquiescence in their subordinates’ use of discriminatory criteria.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 677.

The Supreme Court rejected the view that a supervisor 

could violate the Equal Protection Clause because of “mere 

knowledge of his subordinate’s discriminatory purpose.” Id. 

For constitutional violations under § 1983 or Bivens, a government official “is only liable for his or her own misconduct.” Id. This means that a plaintiff who sues a supervisor 

must show the state of mind when the underlying constitutional violation requires a state of mind for liability. Id. at 

676; see also Barkes v. First Correctional Medical, Inc., 766 F.3d 

307, 319 (3rd Cir. 2014) (“[U]nder Iqbal, the level of intent 

necessary to establish supervisory liability will vary with the 

underlying constitutional tort alleged.”), rev’d on other 

grounds sub nom. Taylor v. Barkes, No. 14-939, 575 U.S. —

(June 1, 2015); Dodds v. Richardson, 614 F.3d 1185, 1204 (10th 

Cir. 2010) (“The Court in Iqbal explained that the factors necessary to establish a § 1983 violation depend upon the constitutional provision at issue, including the state of mind required to establish a violation of that provision.”). 

For discrimination claims like those at issue in Iqbal and 

here, where the state of mind of purposeful discrimination is 

an element of the violation, a supervisor is liable only if she 

had the specific intent to discriminate. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 676. 

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For these claims, the plaintiff must show “more than ‘intent 

as volition or intent as awareness of consequences.’” Id., citing Personnel Administrator v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 279 (1979). 

The supervisor is liable for undertaking a course of action 

only because of, not merely in spite of, the action’s adverse 

effects upon an identifiable group. Id., citing Feeney, 442 U.S. 

at 279.

Although Iqbal involved a claim of invidious discrimination, the Court’s discussion shaped the law of supervisory 

liability for constitutional violations more generally. Before 

Iqbal, most circuits required that a supervisor act (or fail to 

act) with the state of mind of deliberate indifference to be 

liable, no matter the underlying constitutional violation. William N. Evans, Supervisory Liability in the Fallout of Iqbal, 65 

Syracuse L. Rev. 103, 117–18 & n.41 (2014) (collecting cases). 

The deliberate indifference test required knowledge of the 

subordinate’s misconduct and deliberate indifference to or 

tacit authorization of the misconduct. Id. at 117; see also 

Jones, 856 F.2d at 992 (“The supervisors must know about the 

conduct and facilitate it, approve it, condone it, or turn a

blind eye for fear of what they might see.”). Our pre-Iqbal

precedents on some discrimination claims seemed to allow a 

plaintiff to recover for a supervisor’s deliberate indifference 

to a subordinate’s purposeful discrimination. Grindle, 599 

F.3d at 588 (discussing pre-Iqbal precedents for supervisory 

liability in this circuit), citing Nanda, 412 F.3d at 842 (holding 

that a supervisor would not be entitled to qualified immunity if the facts showed the supervisor “was deliberately indifferent in facilitating [his subordinate’s] discriminatory termination”).

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No. 13-1857 13

However, our precedents on sexual harassment claims, a 

subset of discrimination claims, have focused on requiring 

intentional gender discrimination as an element of a claim 

against a supervisor. In our first case discussing a sexual 

harassment claim brought against a state or local official under the Equal Protection Clause, we said “the ultimate inquiry is whether the sexual harassment constitutes intentional discrimination.” Bohen, 799 F.2d at 1187. We explained 

in regard to supervisory liability that “a plaintiff can make 

an ultimate showing of sex discrimination either by showing 

that sexual harassment that is attributable to the employer 

under § 1983 amounted to intentional sex discrimination or 

by showing that the conscious failure of the employer to protect the plaintiff from the abusive conditions created by fellow employees amounted to intentional discrimination.” Id., 

citing Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986). 

Decades later, in Valentine, we repeated the same standard, saying that a jury could infer that the supervisor had 

“consciously chosen not to protect” the plaintiff from the 

harassment so there was “a material question of fact as to 

whether [the supervisor] intentionally discriminated against 

[the plaintiff].” 452 F.3d at 684. These cases made clear that a 

supervisor was liable only if the ultimate trier of fact found 

that the supervisor intended to discriminate. But a reasonable jury could infer—though it would not be required to 

infer—the specific intent to discriminate from evidence that 

a supervisor knew about the harassment and chose not to 

intervene, so evidence of that nature was sufficient to survive summary judgment. 

After Iqbal, we re-examined the state of mind required for 

supervisory liability for sexual harassment in T.E. v. Grindle, 

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599 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 2010). In Grindle, the plaintiffs sued a 

school principal for her response to complaints that a band 

teacher was sexually harassing students at the school. After

receiving a school counselor’s reports of inappropriate 

touching, the principal interviewed the complaining students, spoke with their parents and the school’s social worker, and wrote an incident report. The plaintiffs alleged that 

the principal soft-pedaled the investigation and response 

and discounted the complaints of serious harassment as an 

overreaction to the teacher tapping students’ knees to keep 

time. The principal also told the harasser of the complaints 

and directed him to avoid making physical contact with students and to refrain from comments regarding students’ appearance. The principal received other complaints about the 

teacher but addressed the problem as a teaching-methods 

issue rather than sexual harassment. Id. at 585–87.

We affirmed the district court’s denial of the principal’s 

motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. 

We acknowledged that after Iqbal a plaintiff must show “that 

the supervisor possessed the requisite discriminatory intent.” Id. at 588 (internal citation omitted). We concluded, 

however, that the plaintiffs’ evidence would

allow a jury to conclude that [the principal] 

knew about [the teacher’s] abuse of the girls 

and deliberately helped cover it up by misleading the girls’ parents, the superintendent, and 

other administrators. From this evidence, a jury could reasonably infer—though it would not 

be required to infer—that [the principal] also 

had a purpose of discriminating against the 

girls based on their gender. If [the principal] 

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wishes to argue that she merely wanted to 

avoid a scandal or that she would have taken 

similar steps to conceal abuse if boys had been 

the victims, she can present those arguments to 

the jury, but such suggestions do not mean that 

she is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. 

... [A] jury could conclude that by attempting 

to convert claims about sexual abuse by [the 

teacher] into complaints about teaching methods, [the principal] treated the girls’ complaints 

differently because of their sex. 

Id. at 589 (internal citations omitted).

Haessig argues that Iqbal and Grindle together mean that 

there is a constitutional difference between action and inaction—that purposeful discrimination may be inferred from 

the former but not the latter. She contends the district court 

erred as a matter of law in holding that a jury could find 

Haessig liable for an equal protection violation for purposefully ignoring Locke’s complaint of harassment.3

 

3 The district court’s opinion was not entirely clear about the legal 

standard it applied to analyze Haessig’s liability. Parts of the opinion 

seem to use the “deliberate indifference” standard for intent that Grindle

disavowed after Iqbal. Some confusion is understandable because 

Haessig’s summary judgment brief in the district court said that Locke 

could survive summary judgment if he showed that she “acted with the 

requisite culpable state of mind, i.e. deliberate indifference.” Locke argues that Haessig’s objection to the district court ruling is barred by invited error. See Int’l Travelers Cheque Co. v. BankAmerica Corp., 660 F.2d 

215, 224 (7th Cir. 1981) (“It is well settled law that a party cannot complain of errors which it has ... invited [or] induced the court to make.”). 

Because we affirm the district court even under the discriminatory intent 

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We have doubts about this argument. For one, there is little support in these cases for a distinction between action 

and inaction. Haessig points us to the Supreme Court’s 

statement that purposeful discrimination “involves a decisionmaker’s undertaking a course of action because of ... the 

action’s adverse effects upon an identifiable group.” Iqbal, 

556 U.S at 676–77 (internal quotation marks and modifications omitted). Haessig seizes on one phrase, “course of action,” as implying that a supervisor who takes no action 

cannot, as a matter of law, intend discrimination. We reject 

such an expansive reading of Iqbal.

Haessig’s argument conflicts with the principle that a supervisor could be liable for ignoring complaints from one 

identifiable group while acting on similar complaints from 

those of another group. See Nabozny v. Podlesny, 92 F.3d at 

454–56 (reversing summary judgment on equal protection 

claim; school officials ignored male plaintiff’s complaints of 

harassment but acted on female students’ harassment complaints); see also Bohen v. City of East Chicago, 799 F.2d at 1190 

(Posner, J., concurring) (“The chief of the fire department 

was aware of the harassment, which was frequent rather 

than isolated and in which at least one supervisory employee was implicated; yet he did nothing. It was as if the chief 

knew that his men were systematically refusing to put out

fires in homes owned by blacks, yet did nothing to correct 

the situation.”). Short perhaps only of a confession of intentional discrimination, selective inaction can be strong evidence of discriminatory intent.

 

standard that Haessig argues on appeal, we do not reach the issue of invited error.

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In any event, Locke has provided evidence that tends to 

show that Haessig’s response was more than mere inaction. 

A reasonable jury could infer that Haessig had the requisite 

intent to discriminate because she threatened to retaliate 

against Locke after he complained of sexual harassment. See 

Grindle, 599 F.3d at 589 (evidence that principal failed to intervene and downplayed seriousness of the harassment was 

enough to allow a reasonable jury to infer intent to discriminate); see also Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, 544 

U.S. 167, 173–174 (2005) (interpreting Title IX prohibition of 

“discrimination” “on the basis of sex” to include retaliation 

and holding: “Retaliation is, by definition, an intentional 

act.”). Haessig was irritated with Locke after he made the 

complaint and told him that he would not be released from 

his ankle monitor until he was discharged from parole. 

Agent Schwartz acknowledged to Locke that Haessig’s actions were retaliation for reporting the sexual harassment. 

This evidence of retaliation, especially when combined with 

the evidence of a failure to intervene or investigate, is 

enough to defeat summary judgment on the qualified immunity defense.4

Haessig responds by arguing that retaliation simply cannot support an inference of discriminatory intent. She cites 

Boyd v. Illinois State Police, 384 F.3d 888 (7th Cir. 2004), but 

Boyd denied a different sort of claim and should not be read 

 

4 The admissibility of Schwartz’s statement is not within the limited 

scope of our appellate jurisdiction on this interlocutory appeal. See Whitlock, 682 F.3d at 575 (“Questions of admissibility are indeed legal questions; but they are not the sort of legal questions that are sufficiently separable from the merits so as to provide us with jurisdiction in a collateral-order appeal.”).

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so broadly. In Boyd, the plaintiff brought an equal protection 

claim against his employer for withholding a raise because 

the plaintiff was suing the employer for Title VII violations. 

We specifically noted that the plaintiff had not asserted that 

his employer “retaliated against him on the basis of a protected trait or because of his membership in a particular 

class, but only because of his participation in this litigation.” 

Id. at 898. We held that this claim could be brought under 

Title VII or the First Amendment but not under the Equal 

Protection Clause. Id. We reaffirmed that the Equal Protection Clause “does not establish a general right to be free 

from retaliation.” Id., quoting Grossbaum v. IndianapolisMarion County Building Auth., 100 F.3d 1287, 1296 n.8 (7th 

Cir. 1996).

In contrast, Locke is not asserting a general right to be 

free from retaliation, so Boyd has no bearing on his claim. 

Locke argues that Haessig retaliated against him because of 

a protected characteristic, his sex. See Jackson, 544 U.S. at 174 

(“[R]etaliation is discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ because 

it is an intentional response to the nature of the complaint: 

an allegation of sex discrimination.”). A reasonable jury 

could conclude from these facts that Haessig responded to 

his complaint with irritation and told him he would remain 

on an ankle monitor because of his sex—because he was a 

man rather than a woman complaining of sexual harassment. See Nabozny, 92 F.3d at 455–56.

Haessig may still argue to the jury that she “merely 

wanted to avoid a scandal,” that she consistently failed to 

take action in responding to all parolee complaints, or that 

she would have had the same response to a woman who 

complained of sexual harassment. See Grindle, 599 F.3d at 

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589. But the availability of those arguments does not mean 

that Haessig is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. 

Locke may submit his evidence to a jury and can prevail if 

he can convince the jury that Haessig treated Locke’s complaint differently because he was a man complaining of sexual harassment. Locke does not need to prove that Haessig 

was motivated solely by his sex in the way that she responded to his complaint, but he must show that she chose her 

course of action at least in part because of his sex. See id., citing Feeney, 442 U.S. at 279.

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s 

denial of summary judgment and REMAND for proceedings 

consistent with this opinion.

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