Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-07-03998/USCOURTS-ca6-07-03998-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Kristine Armstrong
Appellee
Randall J. McElfresh
Appellee
John E. Mills
Appellee
Regina Russell
Appellant
University of Toledo
Appellee
Norine T. Wasielewski
Appellee

Document Text:

*

The Honorable Patrick J. Duggan, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, sitting by

designation. 

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

File Name: 08a0288p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT _________________

REGINA RUSSELL,

 Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO; RANDALL J. MCELFRESH;

NORINE T. WASIELEWSKI; KRISTINE ARMSTRONG;

and JOHN E. MILLS, M.D.,

 Defendants-Appellees.

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No. 07-3998

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Ohio at Toledo.

No. 05-07430—Jack Zouhary, District Judge.

Argued: June 3, 2008

Decided and Filed: August 12, 2008 

Before: DAUGHTREY and MOORE, Circuit Judges; DUGGAN, District Judge.*

_________________

COUNSEL

ARGUED: Richard D. Brooks, BAILEY CAVALIERI, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellant. Cheryl

F. Wolff, SPENGLER NATHANSON, Toledo, Ohio, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Richard D.

Brooks, Dennis D. Grant, BAILEY CAVALIERI, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellant. Cheryl F. Wolff,

Theodore M. Rowen, SPENGLER NATHANSON, Toledo, Ohio, for Appellees. 

_________________

OPINION _________________

MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge. In this employment discrimination action,

plaintiff Regina Russell appeals from the district court’s order granting summary judgment to the

defendants, the University of Toledo, Randall McElfresh, Norine Wasielewski, Kristine Armstrong,

and John Mills, on the plaintiff’s claims of disparate treatment, hostile work environment, and

retaliation on the basis of race, brought pursuant to Title VII, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e - 2000e-17,

chapter 4112 of the Ohio Revised Code, and 42 U.S.C. sections 1983 and 1985. Russell contends

that she raised genuine issues of material fact that militate against the grant of summary judgment.

1

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For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that the district court did not commit reversible errors

of law in dismissing Russell’s claims against the defendants, and we therefore affirm the order of

summary judgment. 

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Registered nurse Regina Russell, a long-time employee of the University of Toledo Student

Medical Center, was terminated on May 19, 2005, for “failure of good behavior, gross

insubordination, and neglect of duty.” Russell, an African-American female, was first hired as a

nurse at the center in 1992 and worked in that capacity throughout her 13-year employment with the

university. That tenure was not, however, without its rough patches and its resulting disciplinary

proceedings.

In fact, Russell complained that she was treated differently than other center employees and

that the sole reason for such disparate treatment was her race. Specifically, in an affidavit filed in

opposition to the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and in her deposition testimony, the

plaintiff asserted that, over the years of her employment: nurses with whom she worked expressed

their beliefs that she received her job only through affirmative action programs; she was given less

desirable working hours than even temporary employees; her workspace was deliberately located

in the rear of the facility and was treated with less respect than the desks of other nurses; she was

not permitted leave time to attend committee meetings and other functions when other nurses were;

and she was disciplined more harshly than other employees who also failed to employ proper

nursing methods. 

Kristine Armstrong, the clinic coordinator at the Student Medical Center from 1997 through

the time of Russell’s termination, did not dispute that Russell often worked the latest shift at the

center, that the plaintiff often used a desk at the back of the building, that Russell was denied

permission to attend certain meetings and events, and that the plaintiff had received more frequent

discipline than many other employees. Armstrong insisted, however, that race was never a factor

in decisions affecting Russell and that legitimate considerations explained what Russell attempted

to portray as discriminatory actions.

For example, the coordinator testified in her deposition that the nurses have no assigned desk

but “have various schedules, various sites they work at.” Referencing three of the nurses in the

student medical center, Armstrong stated that “there is no Sandy desk, there is no Gay desk, there

is no Regina desk.” Furthermore, the late hours to which Russell was assigned resulted in part from

the fact that “[s]he was the least senior nurse the entire time she was there” and from the fact that

temporary contract employees could not be counted on to work those later, unsupervised hours by

themselves. Armstrong’s denial of the plaintiff’s request for leave time to attend conferences or to

work on university projects was also not race-based but a function of the need to staff the center at

lunch times and at times when other nurses were already absent from the workplace. 

According to the defendants, Russell’s ultimate termination was, moreover, the culmination

of an escalating pattern of misconduct and insubordination, as well as the inevitable result of a

progressive discipline system provided for in a collective bargaining agreement that governed the

plaintiff’s employment. Armstrong testified that Russell failed to adhere to the center’s triage

policy, that she routinely arrived late to work in the mornings, and was chronically tardy in returning

to work after lunch. She said that the plaintiff also often refused to usher patients to treatment rooms

because she was addressing personal business in telephone calls or studying for her advanced

degree. Consequently, Armstrong testified, the plaintiff had received verbal and written warnings

from her supervisor from time to time.

In November 2003, Russell was sent for a pre-disciplinary hearing after failing to follow-up

for two months on a tuberculosis skin test that had been performed on a University of Toledo

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student. She was also suspended without pay for five days in November 2003 for failing to triage

properly a distraught student who had not slept for four days and who visited the center at the

request of the university counseling services. Rather than gather relevant information from the

student and arrange for him to be seen by a physician, the plaintiff sent the young man away because

he did not have a pre-arranged appointment at the center. Fortunately, a supervisor witnessed the

episode, found the student sobbing on the grass outside the building, and brought him back inside

for consultation with one of the doctors on duty. Notification of that suspension included a written

warning to Russell that “[f]urther infractions of failure of Good Behavior and University Policy may

result in more severe disciplinary action up to and including termination.” 

In the defendants’ estimation, just such further “infractions” occurred on February 15, 2005.

On that date, Dr. John Mills examined a patient who had previously been sutured at another medical

facility and determined that the sutures could then be removed. He asked Russell to remove the

sutures, a request with which the plaintiff did not comply based on her stated position that the

student’s visit would have had to have been classified as a nurse’s visit, rather than a doctor’s visit,

for her to perform the procedure. Even after Mills ordered Russell to remove the sutures, she

demurred, leading Mills to report the incident in an e-mail to Randall McElfresh, the university’s

director of labor employee relations. In that transmission, Mills noted:

[I] have had recurrent and escalating difficulty having this nurse perform specific

functions and nursing duties and have experienced general and sometimes

overwhelming recalcitrance and a very disconcerting lack of professionalism, all of

which ultimately impacts the level and quality [I] wish, and the medical center

intends to provide. [S]adly, [I] am not alone in this experience.

On that same day, February 15, 2005, Mills and Russell were working together on a young

man in respiratory distress. As explained by Mills in his deposition:

And as is routine, be it in the ER or our workplace, I gave her verbal orders; and she

knows a lot of things to do anyway, routine things that she does, and we stabilized

the patient eventually.

But the issue of contention was, I believe, the instruction or order more accurately

to give intravenous methylprednisolone, Solumedrol is the generic name, after the

IV was established. And I was writing the note, writing things out after the patient

was being stabilized, and as minutes passed and the patient became stable after

several aerosols and IV fluid and medications that were administered she brought the

chart to me and asked me to change the order from IV to IM which stands for

intramuscular. And I changed my order since she had told me that she had given it

intramuscularly instead of intravenously to reflect the actual route of administration.

As a result of the February 15 disputes involving the intravenous/intramuscular drug administration

and the suture removal, the university’s labor relations manager, Joseph Klep, recommended that

Russell be sent for a pre-disciplinary hearing on charges of gross insubordination and neglect of

duty. Mills was also disciplined by the university “for an error in judgment” for his post-treatment

alteration of the patient’s medical records. 

Russell’s disciplinary hearing resulted in a May 19, 2005, decision to terminate the plaintiff’s

employment with the university. Subsequently, Russell filed a charge of racial discrimination with

the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and received from them a right-to-sue

letter. The plaintiff then timely filed her complaint in federal district court, alleging Title VII

violations of disparate treatment, maintenance of a hostile work environment, and retaliation;

violation of the civil rights provisions of 42 U.S.C. section 1983; a conspiracy to violate her civil

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rights in contravention of the provisions of 42 U.S.C. section 1985; violations of Ohio’s antidiscrimination principles codified in chapter 4112 of the Ohio Revised Code; and violations of Ohio

public policy.

Following a period of discovery, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, a

motion that a magistrate judge recommended be granted. Objections filed by the plaintiff to the

magistrate judge’s report and recommendation were then considered by the district judge, who

ultimately denied them in a memorandum opinion. In doing so, however, the district court

specifically disagreed with the magistrate judge’s conclusion that Russell failed to satisfy her burden

of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination or retaliation. Nevertheless, the court

determined that Russell did not adduce facts sufficient to raise a genuine issue of whether the

defendants’ actions were actually pretexts for forbidden discrimination and thus granted summary

judgment for the defendants on each of Russell’s causes of action.

DISCUSSION

On appeal, Russell takes issue with most, but not all, of the substantive rulings made in this

case by the magistrate judge and the district court. For example, she contends that the district court

erred in concluding that the defendants’ proffered reasons for terminating her employment at the

Student Medical Center were not simply a pretext for prohibited racial discrimination; she insists

that she offered evidence that similarly-situated employees were treated more favorably than she

was; she argues that questions of fact existed as to whether the plaintiff established prima facie cases

of hostile work environment discrimination and retaliation; and she maintains that the district court

mistakenly believed that she did not sue defendants in their individual capacities in the count of the

complaint alleging a section 1983 violation.

We review grants of summary judgment by a district court de novo. See Ciminillo v.

Streicher, 434 F.3d 461, 464 (6th Cir. 2006). Summary judgment “should be rendered if the

pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no

genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). A genuine issue of material fact exists only when, assuming the truth of the

non-moving party’s evidence and construing all inferences from that evidence in the light most

favorable to the non-moving party, there is sufficient evidence for a trier of fact to find for that party.

A non-moving party cannot withstand summary judgment, however, by introduction of a “mere

scintilla” of evidence in its favor. See Ciminillo, 434 F.3d at 464.

 Disparate Treatment

Russell raises claims of racial discrimination under both Title VII and section 4112 of the

Ohio Revised Code. Those federal and state claims may be analyzed together, however, because

“Ohio’s requirements are the same as under federal law.” Carter v. Univ. of Toledo, 349 F.3d 269,

272 (6th Cir. 2003).

Lacking any direct evidence of the defendants’ racial discrimination, Russell attempted to

prove her claims of disparate treatment by use of circumstantial evidence of discrimination

according to the burden-shifting framework outlined in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411

U.S. 792 (1973), and Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981).

Pursuant to that mode of analysis, a plaintiff must first establish a prima facie case of discrimination

by showing that: “(1) she is a member of a protected group,(2) she was subject to an adverse

employment decision, (3) she was qualified for the position, and (4) she was replaced by a person

outside of the protected class.” Carter, 349 F.3d at 273. A plaintiff may also satisfy the fourth

prong of a prima facie case showing by adducing evidence that she “was . . . treated differently than

similarly situated non-protected employees.” Newman v. Fed. Express Corp., 266 F.3d 401, 406

(6th Cir. 2001).

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Establishment of a prima facie case by the plaintiff “creates a rebuttable presumption of

discrimination, and the burden shifts to the defendant to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory

reason for taking the challenged employment action. If the defendant satisfies this burden, the

plaintiff ‘must then prove that the proffered reason was actually a pretext to hide unlawful

discrimination.’” Id. (citations omitted). To establish such pretext, a plaintiff must show “either

(1) that the proffered reasons had no basis in fact, (2) that the proffered reasons did not actually

motivate [her] discharge, or (3) that they were insufficient to motivate discharge.” Manzer v.

Diamond Shamrock Chems. Co., 29 F.3d 1078, 1084 (6th Cir. 1994).

The magistrate judge determined that the defendants were entitled to summary judgment in

this case on the plaintiff’s disparate treatment claim because Russell failed to establish that

similarly-situated employees outside the protected class were treated more favorably than she was.

As recognized in Carter, however, the fact that a plaintiff is replaced by someone not in the

protected class is also sufficient to satisfy the fourth prong of the prima facie case analysis. There

is no disagreement, moreover, among the parties that Russell’s replacement, Erica Spychalski, was

“Caucasian, white.” Thus, Russell did indeed establish a prima facie case of disparate treatment in

this matter.

Nevertheless, the defendants articulated legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for the

plaintiff’s discharge, reasons focusing on Russell’s failure to remove a patient’s sutures at the

direction of a physician and the plaintiff’s failure to follow orders about how medication was to be

administered to another student patient. Consequently, in an effort to prevail on her disparate

treatment claim, Russell now argues that those articulated reasons were pretextual only and masked

a prohibited discriminatory intent.

She first insists that the articulated bases for her discharge had no factual foundation.

According to the plaintiff, she did not refuse to remove sutures from a patient; she simply sought

to require that the clinic’s records be changed to reflect that the procedure would be performed by

a nurse rather than by a physician. Likewise, she argues that Dr. Mills never instructed her to

deliver certain medicine intravenously and, in fact, that clinic procedures mandated intramuscular

injections for the prescribed dosages of such medications.

But, even if Russell is correct in these characterizations, they are not sufficient to defeat

summary judgment on this claim. Under this circuit’s “modified honest-belief doctrine,” “for an

employer to avoid a finding that its claimed nondiscriminatory reason was pretextual, ‘the employer

must be able to establish its reasonable reliance on the particularized facts that were before it at the

time the decision was made.’” Wright v. Murray Guard, Inc., 455 F.3d 702, 708 (6th Cir. 2006)

(emphasis added). The employee then has the opportunity to introduce contrary evidence, but the

decisional process need not be optimal, only reasonably informed and considered. See id. In this

matter, regardless of the semantics used by the plaintiff, even Regina Russell herself does not deny

that she did not actually remove a particular patient’s sutures when directed to do so by Dr. Mills.

Consequently, she is unable to advance any evidence indicating that the defendant university did not

have an honest belief that Russell refused to comply with a directive given by the medical caregiver

ultimately responsible for the patient’s well-being.

Similarly, the defendant employer had sufficient information before it reasonably to rely

upon facts indicating that the plaintiff chose to disregard the medical directive concerning the type

of injection to be given another clinic patient. The validity of the doctor’s account of the dispute

was lent even more credence by the fact that the doctor himself was forced to alter his records to

reflect the plaintiff’s different injection method, a change that ultimately led to a reprimand of the

doctor also. In short, Russell has offered no evidence indicating that the defendants made the

termination decision on grounds other than those offered or that the defendants did not reasonably

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believe that the plaintiff twice failed to comply with direct orders given by the physician responsible

for the care of patients being treated by him.

Russell also argues that the two identified acts of insubordination did not actually motivate

the discharge decision. Rather, she claims that numerous other experiences at the medical center,

when taken together, establish that invidious discrimination must have been the true impetus for the

adverse employment decision. For example, Russell alleges that she was forced to use a desk in the

back of the clinic, that other Student Medical Center employees openly surmised that she must have

obtained her job through affirmative action initiatives, that she was denied leave time for university

functions that was granted to white employees, and that her workspace was “trashed” by other

nurses while Russell was on vacation.

 These incidents, however, either singularly or in tandem, are insufficient to establish racial

animosity at the Student Medical Center. First, uncontradicted evidence in the record established

that the nurses at the student health center did not have assigned desks, although they may well have

routinely used certain work stations. Second, even had the desks been “assigned,” no testimony was

offered during any deposition that desks other than the station in the rear of the facility were

available at the time Russell was hired in 1992. 

Similarly, comments from other employees shortly after Russell’s hire that she would not

have received the job but for the university’s adherence to affirmative action principles are irrelevant

when deciding whether those employees’ superiors were racially motivated when firing the plaintiff

13 years later. Likewise, statements made by other nurses that Russell was not a pleasant co-worker

do not necessarily indicate discriminatory animus sufficient to create a genuine factual issue. In fact,

such comments are more likely expressions of the frustration that other health center employees felt

as a result of Russell’s reluctance to perform certain menial tasks and her habit of requesting Fridays

off (and thus foreclosing the possibility that other nurses could enjoy three-day weekends) and then

showing up at work anyway. 

The record before this court also contains no evidence and no indication that denials of

Russell’s requests for leave time to attend diversity committee meetings or continuing education

events were racially motivated. Instead, the plaintiff’s supervisor explained that staffing

considerations mandated that certain individuals with more advanced training be available at the

center during evening hours and that Russell not be absent from the facility during other patient

hours due to the illnesses, pregnancies, or other unavoidable absences of other employees.

Other alleged instances of racially discriminatory treatment highlighted by the plaintiff are

even less indicative of an improper purpose behind the defendants’ employment decision. For

example, Russell’s complaints about trash at her work station when she returned from vacations

were clearly overreactions to innocent behavior. Investigations of the plaintiff’s complaints

regarding the condition of “Module A Nursing Station” resulted in the following explanatory

memorandum from Norine Wasielewski to Russell on July 22, 2004:

Upon investigation into your incident report of July 13, 2004, I have found that there

was one water bottle and one soda can inadvertently left on the desk opposite your

customary workstation and no ill intent noted by the staff member in question.

While it is preferable for all employees to leave a workstation in good order, this is

an unfortunate result of what was an extremely busy day.

The staff member working at that desk was covering for you while you were

scheduled off on vacation from July 12th to July 16th and was unaware that you were

working the next day. Given this information, I am unsure as to how the staff

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members [sic] behavior could be construed as harassment when you were not

expected to return from vacation on the day in question.

By memorandum of January 12, 2005, Wasielewski reiterated, in regard to another complaint

from Russell:

While it is preferable for all employees to leave a nursing station just as they found

it, this is not an unusual event. There are several other offices and workstations

which are shared with other Student Medical staff members as well as contingent

staff. Kris Armstrong has spoke [sic] with the other individuals who worked in

Module A during your absence the week of December 8, 2004 and none of them

meant any intentional harm. This is an unfortunate inconvenience of sharing a

workplace.

Under this second prong of the Manzer pretext analysis, “the plaintiff admits the factual basis

underlying the employer’s proffered explanation and further admits that such conduct could

motivate dismissal.” Manzer, 29 F.3d at 1084. Nevertheless,

 the plaintiff attempts to indict the credibility of [the] employer’s explanation by

showing circumstances which tend to prove that an illegal motivation was more

likely than that offered by the defendant. In other words, the plaintiff argues that the

sheer weight of the circumstantial evidence of discrimination makes it “more likely

than not” that the employer’s explanation is a pretext, or coverup.

Id. Because Russell has not adduced evidence indicating a discriminatory motive in any of the

employer’s actions, however, she has failed to establish pretext under this scenario.

In the alternative, to satisfy the third prong of the Manzer pretext analysis framework, the

plaintiff must show that the employer’s proffered reasons for the challenged employment action

were insufficient to motivate that discharge. Such a showing “ordinarily[ ] consists of evidence that

other employees, particularly employees not in the protected class, were not fired even though they

engaged in substantially identical conduct to that which the employer contends motivated its

discharge of the plaintiff.” Id. As this court held in Ercegovich v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 154 F.3d 344, 352 (6th Cir. 1998):

[T]o be deemed “similarly situated” in the disciplinary context, “the individuals with

whom the plaintiff seeks to compare his/her treatment must have dealt with the same

supervisor, have been subject to the same standards and have engaged in the same

conduct without such differentiating or mitigating circumstances that would

distinguish their conduct or the employer’s treatment of them for it.” Mitchell [v.

Toledo Hosp.], 964 F.2d [577, 583 (6th Cir. 1992)].

Russell has failed to establish, however, that any other employees of the Student Medical

Center were so similarly situated. In its memorandum opinion, the district court correctly explained

why this was so:

Plaintiff claims she was similarly-situated to: (1) Defendant Armstrong, a Caucasian

employee, who was not displaced for failing to properly triage a patient in 2004 or

rupturing a patient’s ear drum; (2) Elizabeth Graflin, a Caucasian employee, who

obtained medical treatment for her spouse in contradiction to Student Medical Center

policy; (3) Gay Trace, a Caucasian employee, who placed a patient in a treatment

room and left for the day without informing anyone about the patient’s whereabouts;

and (4) Colleen Yoder, a Caucasian employee [who] was given flexible time to

attend class.

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The actions of each of these other employees are distinguishable from Plaintiff’s

actions. The Record indicates a long history of complaints about Plaintiff’s work

performance and attitude, as well as multiple disciplinary actions, such as written

warnings, suspensions, working suspensions, and eventually termination. There is

no indication Armstrong, Graflin, Trace or Yoder had similar histories of discipline.

. . . Clearly, there exist differentiating circumstances which distinguish Plaintiff’s

conduct from that of the other employees, including Plaintiff’s extensive history of

poor performance. Therefore, Armstrong, Graflin, Trace and Yoder are not similarly

situated to Plaintiff, and Plaintiff cannot prove Defendants’ legitimate

nondiscriminatory reason was insufficient to terminate her employment.

Russell asserts that the other employees’ lack of prior disciplinary records, in and of itself,

establishes that she was treated differently than Caucasian employees. The explanation for the lack

of prior disciplinary records for Armstrong, Graflin, Trace, and Yoder, however, is simply the stark

absence of evidence that those individuals had engaged in improper conduct prior to the incidents

emphasized by Russell. Again, that fact alone means that the plaintiff was not similarly situated to

the individuals with whom she seeks to compare herself.

Hostile Work Environment

Russell also submits that she was subjected to a hostile work environment at the Student

Medical Center solely because of her race. In her brief on appeal, Russell asserts that hostility was

manifested in numerous ways – “general hostility and unfriendliness, isolation, disparate discipline,

adverse evaluations, non-accommodation of University-sponsored committee activities, and inferior

work hours, assignments, and workspace.” Clearly, illegal discrimination may be found when a

plaintiff establishes that “the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and

insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and

create an abusive working environment.” Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993). In

order to establish such a hostile work environment claim, a plaintiff must demonstrate that (1) she

is a member of a protected class; (2) she was subject to unwelcomed harassment; (3) the harassment

was based on her race; (4) the harassment created a hostile work environment; and (5) the employer

failed to take reasonable care to prevent and correct any harassing behavior. See Williams v. Gen.

Motors Corp., 187 F.3d 553, 560-61 (6th Cir. 1999).

The applicable “test for a hostile work environment has both objective and subjective

components.” Id. at 566. As the Supreme Court noted in Harris:

Conduct that is not severe or pervasive enough to create an objectively hostile or

abusive work environment – an environment that a reasonable person would find

hostile or abusive – is beyond Title VII’s purview. Likewise, if the victim does not

subjectively perceive the environment to be abusive, the conduct has not actually

altered the conditions of the victim’s employment, and there is no Title VII violation.

Harris, 510 U.S. at 21-22.

On appeal, Russell argues that she has established at least a prima facie case of hostile-workenvironment discrimination and that summary judgment should not have been granted in the

defendants’ favor on this cause of action. Again, however, the plaintiff has adduced absolutely no

evidence to indicate that any of the allegedly hostile or harassing actions were in any way racebased. Indeed, the only injection of race in any of Russell’s hostile work environment complaints

is found in the plaintiff’s assertions that fellow employees indicated that Russell must have obtained

her job through affirmative action initiatives. Those isolated comments, however, were uttered

many years prior to the plaintiff’s termination and were neither so pervasive nor so severe as to

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“amount to discriminatory changes in the terms or conditions of employment.” See Bowman v.

Shawnee State Univ., 220 F.3d 456, 463 (6th Cir. 2000). Viewed singularly or collectively, the

complaints voiced by Russell reflect more on the plaintiff’s work habits and on staffing concerns

at the Student Medical Center than on any racial animosity.

Retaliation for Protected Conduct

The plaintiff next asserts that the defendants improperly retaliated against her for two

protected activities: filing racial discrimination claims with the EEOC and speaking at a rally

concerned with the university’s handling of diversity issues. To establish a prima facie claim of

Title VII retaliation, a plaintiff must show that:

(1) she engaged in activity protected by Title VII; (2) this exercise of protected rights

was known to the defendant; (3) defendant thereafter took adverse employment

action against the plaintiff, or the plaintiff was subjected to severe or pervasive

retaliatory harassment by a supervisor; and (4) there was a causal connection

between the protected activity and the adverse employment action or harassment.

Morris v. Oldham County Fiscal Court, 201 F.3d 784, 792 (6th Cir. 2000) (emphasis in original

removed).

The burden of establishing a prima facie case is not an onerous one and is easily satisfied.

See Nguyen v. City of Cleveland, 229 F.3d 559, 563 (6th Cir. 2000). Once the prima facie case is

established, the burden of production then shifts to the employer who must articulate a legitimate,

nondiscriminatory reason for its actions. See Morris, 201 F.3d at 793. “The plaintiff, who bears the

burden of persuasion throughout the entire process, then must demonstrate that the proffered reason

was not the true reason for the employment decision.” Id. (citations and internal quotation marks

omitted).

Despite the relative ease with which a prima facie case can be established, the magistrate

judge and the district judge concurred in this matter that Russell failed to prove that the defendants

were aware of the plaintiff’s presence at a public rally or that there was a causal connection between

either the rally participation and the termination or the EEOC filings and the termination. Indeed,

Russell offered no evidence that the defendants were aware of her February 18, 2005, speech at the

rally other than her assertion that the function was publicized and covered by the press. As noted

by the defendants, however, the press release concerning the rally never mentioned Russell by name

or otherwise alluded to her participation. 

The defendants were, nevertheless, clearly aware that Russell had filed charges with the

EEOC in September 2004. Indeed, at a meeting held during that month, McElfresh explicitly stated

that his office was in charge of coordinating the defendants’ response to the allegations of

discrimination made by he plaintiff. He further cautioned Dr. Weiss and Dr. Mills “to be very clear

on their instructions to [the plaintiff]. If she had questions, to resolve any questions that she had.

And that if they had any problems as far as a refusal to perform some function, to contact my

office.”

Even assuming that Russell established her prima facie case by showing a causal connection

between her protected activity and her termination, the record contains no evidence to refute the

claim that the defendants would still have fired Russell for the stated, justifiable reasons of “failure

of good behavior, gross insubordination, and neglect of duty.” The appellate record is replete with

evidence of the plaintiff’s numerous, substantiated violations of policy and of the progressive

disciplinary steps that had been undertaken in an effort to correct such behavior. In the face of the

February 15, 2005, transgressions by Russell, the defendants were justified in pursuing the drastic

measures that led to the plaintiff’s dismissal. Consequently, the plaintiff has failed to adduce

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No. 07-3998 Russell v. University of Toledo, et al. Page 10

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Even though count four of Russell’s complaint purports to allege a “[v]iolation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981,” the actual

allegation of that count refers only to 42 U.S.C. section 1983. Thus, we treat this claim as a section 1983 cause of action.

sufficient evidence that she would not have been terminated even absent her protected activities, that

the stated reasons for the termination were not the true justifications for the employment action, and,

thus, that the district court’s grant of summary judgment on her retaliation claim was not proper.

Section 19831

The final issue Russell raises on appeal challenges the district court’s determination that the

plaintiff’s section 1983 claim must be dismissed because Russell failed to sue any defendants in their

individual capacities. The legal principle is now well-established that “[s]ection 1983 provides a

federal forum to remedy many deprivations of civil liberties, but it does not provide a federal forum

for litigants who seek a remedy against a State for alleged deprivations of civil liberties.” Will v.

Mich. Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 66 (1989).

In count four, the plaintiff alleges that only “Defendant University[, an arm of the state,] has,

under color of regulation, custom and usage, thereby subjected Plaintiff to deprivation of rights and

privileges secured by the laws of the United States in violation of her rights under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983.” (Emphasis added.) Nevertheless, she claims on appeal that she has sued all defendants, in

both their official and individual capacities, in that cause of action, mainly because the first

paragraph of count four incorporates all previous allegations and one paragraph in a preceding count

mentions the individual defendants by name.

This argument is, however, unpersuasive. Examination of the complaint as a whole

establishes that the plaintiff knows how to include all defendants in those counts of the complaint

meant to apply to all defendants. For example, count two refers to improper actions by the

“Defendant University and Defendants, Wasielewski, Armstrong and Mills”; count five refers to a

conspiracy among “Defendants McElfresh, Wasielewski, Armstrong and Mills”; and counts six and

seven both allege state law violations by “Defendants The University of Toledo, McElfresh,

Wasielewski, Armstrong and Mills.” The limitation in count four to the “Defendant University”

must, therefore, be taken as indicative of Russell’s intentions and, consequently, supports the

dismissal of the claim by the district court.

CONCLUSION

Confronted with the reality that she had been terminated from her position at the University

of Toledo’s Student Medical Center, Regina Russell claimed that the adverse employment action

must have been the result of illegal racial discrimination. However, the plaintiff has failed to put

forth any evidence that would create a genuine issue of material fact disputing the district court’s

conclusion that the termination resulted from Russell’s “failure of good behavior, gross

insubordination, and neglect of duty.” It follows that the district court correctly entered judgment

in favor of the defendants as a matter of law, and we therefore AFFIRM the district court’s

judgment.

 Case: 07-3998 Document: 00611544178 Filed: 08/12/2008 Page: 10