Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-13-02470/USCOURTS-ca6-13-02470-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

---

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

File Name: 15a0489n.06

No. 13-2470

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

JOSEPH VIGIL,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY 

OF MICHIGAN, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED 

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

BEFORE: SUHRHEINRICH, CLAY, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

CLAY, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff Joseph Dean Vigil filed this action under 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983 and parallel Michigan constitutional protections to challenge his treatment and eventual 

dismissal in November 2007 from the doctoral program in political science at the University of 

Michigan.

1

 Vigil’s claim of disparate treatment on the basis of race during his tenure in the 

program was dismissed as untimely, and, pursuant to an earlier order of this Court, the case 

proceeded solely on his claims relating to his dismissal from the program. Vigil v. Regents of the 

Univ. of Mich., No. 11-2075, (6th Cir. Dec. 6, 2012). Following discovery, the district court 

granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Vigil v. Regents of the Univ. of Mich., 980 

F. Supp. 2d 790 (E.D. Mich. 2013). Vigil timely appealed the judgment as to his procedural due 

process claim and his First Amendment retaliation claim. We AFFIRM.

 

1 Vigil originally asserted a variety of state law tort claims, but those were abandoned 

below and are not relevant to this appeal. 

 Case: 13-2470 Document: 33-1 Filed: 07/07/2015 Page: 1
No. 13-2470

2

Vigil was admitted to the graduate program in political science at the University of 

Michigan and enrolled there in September 1991. He completed his coursework in 1993 and 

achieved candidacy for a doctoral degree in 2001. By this time, Vigil was conducting his 

graduate work long-distance while teaching as an adjunct in Colorado. The department voted on 

December 14, 2000 to require doctoral candidates to complete and successfully defend their 

dissertations within six years from the date of candidacy. 

In 2003, Vigil formed a committee of four members to oversee his dissertation research, 

as required by department policy. Vigil’s research concerned sex-workers and First Amendment 

protections, and his committee included scholars in First Amendment law, women’s studies, and 

political science. By 2004, Vigil’s dissertation efforts had run into serious trouble. In April of 

that year, the chair of his committee reported that the committee had developed “serious 

reservations” about the work Vigil submitted. (R. 43-1, April 2004 Letter, PageID 624.) One of 

the committee members left the committee after being denied tenure. In the fall of 2004, Vigil

tried with increasing frustration and no success to convince his dissertation chair to support his 

request for an exemption that would allow him to defend the dissertation before a three-person 

committee, contrary to department practice. Finally, in December 2004, Vigil was able to recruit 

a women’s studies professor to serve as the fourth person on his committee.

Vigil fared no better once the full draft was submitted to the committee. In a series of 

emails, his chair and committee members informed him that “no one on the committee” thought 

his “draft [was] defensible, and no one [saw] any plausible revising strategies for turning it into a 

defensible draft,” (R. 43-1, Emails, PageID 635-36), that the empirical work was fatally flawed,

that the writing voiced “unsupported sentiments or opinions,” and that it failed to appropriately 

engage with the scholarly literature (id. at 636-37). After Vigil submitted planned revisions in 

 Case: 13-2470 Document: 33-1 Filed: 07/07/2015 Page: 2
No. 13-2470

3

November 2005, his committee chair informed him that his dissertation did not meet scholarly 

standards because, among other reasons, his position remained “a complete nonstarter on first 

amendment grounds,” and on that basis resigned from the committee. (R. 36-6, Faculty Emails, 

PageID 440.) Over the following months, Vigil’s other committee members reiterated their 

views that, inter alia, “the basic research question, design, execution, and conclusion of the work 

[were] flawed,” (id. at 441), his writing did not fairly represent the positions held by others, and 

his empirical work was “unrelated . . . to the doctrinal and historical framework of his thesis” (id.

at 445). By March 2006, Vigil had been informed by every academic advisor on his committee 

that his work did not meet the standards for doctoral work at the University of Michigan. Vigil 

does not appear to have taken any action after March 2006 to pursue his degree. More than a 

year and a half later, in November 2007, the University of Michigan sent Vigil a letter dismissing 

him from the doctoral program, based on his failure to meet the dissertation requirement within 

six years of achieving candidacy as required by departmental guidelines. 

The district court held that Vigil did not carry his summary judgment burden on either his 

procedural due process claim or his First Amendment retaliation claim. The court found that the 

record lacked any genuine dispute that Vigil received adequate notice “of his committee’s 

dissatisfaction with his dissertation draft and belief it was not defense ready,” and that the 

decision to dismiss him from the program was “‘careful and deliberate’ based on the committee 

members’ comments and the graduate school’s requirement that candidates complete their 

dissertation within six years of achieving candidacy.” 980 F. Supp. 2d at 803 (footnote omitted) 

(citing Ku v. Tenn., 322 F.3d 431, 436 (6th Cir. 2003) (“[W]hen the student has been fully

informed of the faculty’s dissatisfaction with the student’s academic progress and when the 

decision to dismiss was careful and deliberate, the Fourteenth Amendment’s procedural due 

 Case: 13-2470 Document: 33-1 Filed: 07/07/2015 Page: 3
No. 13-2470

4

process requirement has been met.”)). As to Vigil’s First Amendment retaliation claim, the 

district court held that Vigil presented no allegations, much less factual disputes, that could 

establish a connection between his constitutionally protected speech and Defendants’ decision to 

dismiss him from the program pursuant to department policy. Id.

We have thoroughly reviewed the record, the applicable law, and the parties’ arguments, 

and we discern no error in the district court’s conclusions. We therefore hold that the district 

court correctly concluded that Vigil failed to establish a genuine dispute of material fact that 

would permit his procedural due process and First Amendment retaliation claims to go to a jury. 

We AFFIRM on the basis of the district court’s September 30, 2013 opinion. See 980 F. Supp. 

2d 790.

 Case: 13-2470 Document: 33-1 Filed: 07/07/2015 Page: 4