Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca2-15-03392/USCOURTS-ca2-15-03392-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Winifred Cooper
Appellant
National Employment Lawyers Association/New York
Amicus Curiae
New York State Department of Labor
Appellee
State of New York

Document Text:

15‐3392‐cv

Cooper v. N.Y. State Dep’t of Labor   

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Second Circuit ________

AUGUST TERM 2015

No. 15‐3392‐cv

WINIFRED COOPER,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR,

Defendant‐Appellee.*

________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of New York

________

   

ARGUED: APRIL 5, 2016

DECIDED: APRIL 26, 2016

________

Before: KEARSE, CABRANES, and CHIN, Circuit Judges.

________

 

* The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the official caption to conform

with the caption above.

Case 15-3392, Document 63-1, 04/26/2016, 1758177, Page1 of 9
2                     No. 15‐3392‐cv

Plaintiff‐appellant Winifred Cooper appeals an October 9,

2015 judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern

District of New York (Glenn T. Suddaby, Chief Judge) dismissing,

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), claims based on Title

VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. (“Title

VII”), and the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law

§§ 290 et seq. (“NYSHRL”).    Cooper’s complaint alleges that her

former employer, defendant‐appellee New York State Department

of Labor, unlawfully retaliated against her for opposing an

employment practice proscribed by Title VII and the NYSHRL.  

Concluding, as did the District Court, that Cooper could not

reasonably have believed that the conduct she opposed violated

either statute, we AFFIRM.

________

CHRISTOPHER D. WATKINS, Sussman & Watkins,

Goshen, NY, for Plaintiff‐Appellant.

BRIAN D. GINSBERG, Assistant Solicitor General

(Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, and

Andrew B. Ayers, Senior Assistant Solicitor

General, on the brief), for Eric T. Schneiderman,

Attorney General of the State of New York, for

Defendant‐Appellee.

Julie Salwen, Harrison, Harrison & Assoc., Ltd.,

Red Bank, NJ, for Amicus Curiae National

Employment Lawyers Association/New York, in

support of Plaintiff‐Appellant.

________

Case 15-3392, Document 63-1, 04/26/2016, 1758177, Page2 of 9
3                     No. 15‐3392‐cv

PER CURIAM:

Plaintiff‐appellant Winifred Cooper appeals an October 9,

2015 judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern

District of New York (Glenn T. Suddaby, Chief Judge) dismissing,

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), claims based on Title

VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. (“Title

VII”), and the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law

§§ 290 et seq. (“NYSHRL”).    Cooper’s complaint alleges that her

former employer, defendant‐appellee New York State Department

of Labor (“defendant” or “DOL”), unlawfully retaliated against her

for opposing an employment practice proscribed by Title VII and the

NYSHRL.  Concluding, as did the District Court, that Cooper could

not reasonably have believed that the conduct she opposed violated

either statute, we AFFIRM.

BACKGROUND

This case arises out of defendant’s decision, in April 2013, to

remove Cooper from her position as Director of Equal Opportunity

Development (“DEOD”) for the DOL.1    Prior to her removal,

Cooper’s responsibilities as DEOD included “ensur[ing] that [the

DOL] complied with federal Equal Opportunity rules and

 

1 We draw the facts from Cooper’s amended complaint, accepting them as

true and viewing them in the light most favorable to Cooper.  Galper v. JP Morgan

Chase Bank, N.A., 802 F.3d 437, 443‐44 (2d Cir. 2015).

Case 15-3392, Document 63-1, 04/26/2016, 1758177, Page3 of 9
4                     No. 15‐3392‐cv

regulations.”    J.A. 13.2    In December 2012, she learned that the

Governor’s Office of Employee Relations (“GOER”) had developed a

plan to “alter the means by which internal [Equal Employment

Opportunity (“EEO”)] complaints were to be handled by state

agencies, including the” DOL.  Id.   

Cooper believed that the proposed changes “materially

conflicted with federal regulations” because they would “subject the

EEO complaint response process to political pressure,” increasing

the likelihood that workplace discrimination would go unredressed.  

Id.    In a series of communications with her supervisors, Cooper

brought these concerns to light.  J.A. 13‐14.   

Cooper’s position carried the day—the GOER plan was

altered to take account of her views—but, in April 2013, she was

fired, allegedly in retaliation for having lobbied against GOER’s

proposal.  J.A. 14‐15.  On that basis Cooper filed this lawsuit, seeking

recovery under Title VII and the NYSHRL.3    The District Court

granted defendant’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, see Cooper v.

N.Y. State Dep’t of Labor, No. 1:14 Civ. 717 (GTS) (CFH), 2015 WL

5918263 (N.D.N.Y. Oct. 9, 2015), and Cooper appealed.

 

2 References to “J.A.” are to the joint appendix.

3 “Employment discrimination claims brought under the NYSHRL are

analyzed identically to claims under . . . Title VII,” Brennan v. Metro. Opera Ass’n,

Inc., 192 F.3d 310, 316 n.2 (2d Cir. 1999); thus, our analysis does not distinguish

between Cooper’s federal and state causes of action.

Case 15-3392, Document 63-1, 04/26/2016, 1758177, Page4 of 9
5                     No. 15‐3392‐cv

DISCUSSION

Reviewing the question de novo, Cohen v. S.A.C. Trading Corp.,

711 F.3d 353, 358 (2d Cir. 2013), we conclude that the District Court

did not err in dismissing Cooper’s complaint.    Title VII’s anti‐

retaliation provision prohibits employers from “discriminat[ing]

against any individual . . . because he has opposed any practice

made an unlawful employment practice by this subchapter.”    42

U.S.C. § 2000e‐3(a).    A plaintiff seeking to demonstrate that he

engaged in protected activity need not show that the behavior he

opposed in fact violated Title VII; he must, however, show that he

“possessed a good faith, reasonable belief,” Summa v. Hofstra Univ.,

708 F.3d 115, 126 (2d Cir. 2013), that the employer’s conduct

qualified as an “unlawful employment practice” under the statute,

see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e‐3(a).

Title VII is a “precise, complex, and exhaustive” statute, Univ.

of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, ‐‐‐ U.S. ‐‐‐, 133 S. Ct. 2517, 2530 (2013),

and it defines the term “unlawful employment practice” with

characteristic exactitude.    An “unlawful employment practice” is

“discrimination on the basis of any of seven prohibited criteria: race,

color, religion, sex, national origin, opposition to employment

discrimination, and submitting or supporting a complaint about

employment discrimination.”  Id. at 2532; see also 42 U.S.C. § 2000e‐

2(a)‐(d) (enumerating as an “unlawful employment practice” status‐

based discrimination by various entities); id. § 2000e‐2(l)

(enumerating as an “unlawful employment practice” status‐based

discrimination in “employment related tests”); id. § 2000e‐3(a)

Case 15-3392, Document 63-1, 04/26/2016, 1758177, Page5 of 9
6                     No. 15‐3392‐cv

(enumerating as an “unlawful employment practice” retaliating

against an individual for opposing conduct made unlawful by, or

participating in a proceeding under, Title VII); id. § 2000e‐3(b)

(enumerating as an “unlawful employment practice” the advertising

of a preference for applicants based on “race, color, religion, sex, or

national origin”).  Thus, a plaintiff alleging unlawful retaliation may

not recover unless he reasonably believed that the conduct he

opposed ran afoul of one of these particular statutory proscriptions.  

See, e.g., Manoharan v. Columbia Univ. Coll. of Physicians & Surgeons,

842 F.2d 590, 594 (2d Cir. 1988) (objecting to an employer’s failure to

adhere to its own affirmative‐action program is not protected

activity, because such a failure is not an “unlawful employment

practice” under Title VII).

For this reason, Cooper is not entitled to relief.  The conduct

she opposed—the amendment of internal procedures in a manner

that, she believed, would permit political considerations to influence

the evaluation of discrimination claims—is not a “practice made an

unlawful employment practice” by Title VII.  42 U.S.C. § 2000e‐3(a).  

Nor could Cooper reasonably have believed otherwise.  In defining

with great care and precision those behaviors that qualify as

“unlawful employment practices,” the statute lays on employers no

obligation to maintain any particular procedures for handling

Case 15-3392, Document 63-1, 04/26/2016, 1758177, Page6 of 9
7                     No. 15‐3392‐cv

internal complaints.  Indeed, the relevant provisions do not touch on

the subject at all.4

Cooper contends that her activity was protected because she

opposed a practice that, if adopted, would have increased the

likelihood of future unredressed Title VII violations.    We cannot

agree.  The same argument might be (indeed, has been) made about

the abandonment of voluntary affirmative action programs, but

opposing an employer’s failure to engage in affirmative action is

nevertheless unprotected under the statute.  See Manoharan, 842 F.2d

at 594.  For instance, in King v. Jackson, the plaintiff alleged that the

Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) had

violated Title VII by forcing him to resign because he had opposed

HUD’s decision to discontinue its Affirmative Employment Plan

(“AEP”), a program calculated to rectify the “manifest imbalance or

conspicuous absence of minorities and women in the agency’s work

force.”  487 F.3d 970, 971 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks

omitted).    Contending that the AEP functioned as a “structural

safeguard against discriminatory hiring,” the plaintiff urged that

HUD’s decision to scrap the program would increase the likelihood

of future discrimination and should therefore itself be viewed as an

unlawful employment practice.  Id. at 973 (internal quotation marks

omitted).  The court disagreed.  “Even if . . . HUD used its AEP to

 

4 In view of this conclusion, we need not reach defendant’s remaining

argument in support of affirmance: that Cooper failed to plausibly allege that she

reasonably believed that GOER’s proposed procedures would increase the risk

that political pressures would compromise the fair handling of discrimination

claims.

Case 15-3392, Document 63-1, 04/26/2016, 1758177, Page7 of 9
8                     No. 15‐3392‐cv

prevent discrimination,” it reasoned, “that does not convert the

Department’s refusal to extend the AEP into an act of discriminatory

hiring.”  Id.

So too here.  That Cooper sought to ensure that hypothetical

victims of discrimination received a fair shake does not mean that

she “possessed a good faith, reasonable belief,” Summa, 708 F.3d at

126, that accepting GOER’s proposal would have qualified as an

“unlawful employment practice” under the statute, see 42 U.S.C. §

2000e‐3(a).   Simply put, her argument stretches our precedents and

the text of Title VII well past their breaking points.   

Perhaps tellingly, Cooper urges us to construe Title VII’s

retaliation clause “broadly” with an eye toward promoting the

statute’s “broad remedial purposes.”    Appellant’s Br. 11.    We are

mindful that when an employer punishes an employee for conduct

intended to secure equality in the workplace, it does little to

further—and may hinder—Title VII’s primary objective of

eradicating invidious discrimination in employment.    But “no

legislation pursues its purposes at all costs.”    CTS Corp. v.

Waldburger, ‐‐‐ U.S. ‐‐‐, 134 S. Ct. 2175, 2185 (2014) (internal quotation

marks omitted).    We may not, in the name of advancing general

aims, ignore Congress’s choice to carefully circumscribe the universe

of “unlawful employment practices”—and thus to circumscribe the

universe of conduct protected from retaliation.  See id. (“The Court

of Appeals supported its interpretation . . . by invoking the

proposition that remedial statutes should be interpreted in a liberal

manner.  The Court of Appeals was in error when it treated this as a

Case 15-3392, Document 63-1, 04/26/2016, 1758177, Page8 of 9
9                     No. 15‐3392‐cv

substitute for a conclusion grounded in the statute’s text and

structure.”).   Because Cooper did not engage in any such conduct,

we must affirm the judgment of the District Court.

CONCLUSION

In sum, Cooper could not reasonably have believed that in

lobbying against GOER’s proposal, she was opposing conduct that

qualified as an “unlawful employment practice” under Title VII.  We

thus AFFIRM the October 9, 2015 judgment of the District Court.   

Case 15-3392, Document 63-1, 04/26/2016, 1758177, Page9 of 9