NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION

File Name: 18a0513n.06

No. 17-2347

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

ROBERT GARCEAU; ALAN DICKENSON, II; 

STEVEN HOWE; CARY WOOSTER; ERIC EADS; 

LAWRENCE LAFRAMBOISE; TROY SIMPSON; 

ESTHER CAMPBELL; CHAD BALDWIN; 

RODNEY HALL; JOHN CRAMER; MICHAEL 

ROSS,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

CITY OF FLINT, MICHIGAN; DARRYL 

PATTERSON; ALVERN LOCK,

Defendants-Appellees. 

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

)

ON APPEAL FROM THE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE EASTERN 

DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

BEFORE: CLAY and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges; ZOUHARY, District Judge.*

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge. 

Plaintiffs appeal the district court’s grant of summary judgment in defendants’ favor in this 

§ 1983 “reverse race” discrimination matter. We affirm. 

In 2011, the City of Flint Police Department, due to serious financial woes, had an excess 

of sergeant openings. Its then-Chief of Police, defendant Alvern Lock, decided to provisionally 

promote individuals under Rule VII, Section 3 of the City’s Personnel Rules and Regulations until 

the Department could create and administer a formal promotional exam. Lock turned to two 

 

*The Honorable Jack Zouhary, United States District Judge for the Northern District of 

Ohio, sitting by designation.
No. 17-2347

Garceau, et al. v. City of Flint, et al.

-2-

captains for help, defendant Patterson and T.P. Johnson,1asking that they generate a list of those 

individuals they believed “would be qualified . . . [and] best suited for” the positions. Lock 

retained final authority over the decision-making process, and upon the recommendations from 

Patterson and Johnson provisionally promoted twelve individuals. The City then conducted a 

series of promotional exams, after which some of the provisionally promoted individuals, along 

with other officers who also received the highest exam scores, were permanently promoted. 

Plaintiffs are several Caucasian police officers who were not provisionally promoted to 

sergeant.2 They brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action claiming defendants discriminated against 

them because of their race during the provisional-appointment process in violation of the 

Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee. Plaintiffs asserted a variety of other claims 

against defendants as well, which are not at issue in this appeal. Their general theory is that the 

Flint Police Department has a long history of discriminating against Caucasian police officers, and 

that this history repeated itself in the use of subjective criteria to justify promoting African 

American officers instead of them.3 

The district court entered summary judgment in defendants’ favor on plaintiffs’ § 1983 

claims. In so doing, it assumed Title VII’s mixed-motive rubric applied to standalone § 1983 

claims,4 which provides that a plaintiff must “produce evidence sufficient to convince a jury that: 

 

1Despite his equal role in the allegedly discriminatory provisional hiring process, Johnson, 

a white male, was not named as a defendant in this action. 

2Plaintiffs Campbell and Simpson were permanently promoted to sergeant following 

subsequent exams. 

3Plaintiffs assert this theory notwithstanding the fact that use of their proffered objective 

criterium—seniority—would not have resulted in their promotion and actually would have resulted 

in more African American officers being promoted. 

4As opposed to the more exacting McDonnell Douglas/Burdine burden-shifting framework 

for single-motive claims. 
No. 17-2347

Garceau, et al. v. City of Flint, et al.

-3-

(1) the defendant took an adverse employment action against the plaintiff; and (2) race, color, 

religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for the defendant’s adverse employment 

action.” White v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 533 F.3d 381, 400 (6th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation 

marks and emphasis omitted). In a well-reasoned opinion, the district court comprehensively 

detailed why there was no record evidence—aside from a “single, stray comment [by Lock] that 

was temporally remote to the instant promotions”—indicating plaintiffs’ race motivated Lock’s 

promotional decisions, noting that “the bulk of Plaintiffs’ proffered evidence consists of 

impermissible hearsay, blatant speculation, or misrepresented facts from the record.” 

Plaintiffs’ briefing on appeal leaves much to be desired. Noticeably absent is a citation to 

record evidence reflecting a genuine issue of material fact—evidence that defendants treated 

similarly-situated individuals differently (i.e., those individuals who did receive provisional 

promotions). Instead, plaintiffs largely repeat verbatim the brief they filed below, and do so 

without addressing the district court’s rejection of their positions and criticism of their factual 

distortions. 

We have reviewed the record on appeal. Because the district court fully and accurately 

articulated the reasons why judgment should be entered for defendants, a detailed opinion by this 

court would be duplicative and serve no useful purpose. Accordingly, we adopt the analysis and 

conclusions of the district court and affirm on the basis of its August 31, 2016, opinion.