Opinion ID: 766743
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Alleged Incidences of Disparate Treatment

Text: 83 Bickerstaff next claims that the appointment of two ad hoc committees is in violation of Vassar's written procedures and is without precedent and constituted retaliation against her for having filed an appeal from her denial of tenure in 1989. While it is true that [d]epartures from procedural regularity . . . can raise a question as to the good faith of the process where the departure may reasonably affect the decision, Stern, 131 F.3d at 313 (internal quotations and citation omitted), Bickerstaff has not shown that the creation of two ad hoc committees in her case was a procedural irregularity or, more importantly, that it was either race-related or motivated by retaliation. First, Bickerstaff misunderstands Vassar's written procedures for promotion in connection with joint appointments. The Faculty Handbook addresses multidisciplinary programs and the process for promotions for persons holding joint appointments, and unambiguously provides for the program and department making their own separate recommendations to FASC, the Dean and the President. Further, the Faculty Handbook plainly states that [w]hen the department or the program has fewer than two senior members then [sic] that of the candidate for promotion, an ad hoc committee [is] formed in each case. The Faculty Handbook continues that FASC will consider the departmental and program recommendations, and that these procedures are designed to accommodate recommendations from both [the] department and program. Thus, in establishing two ad hoc committees and receiving separate recommendations from each, Vassar complied with its posted procedures. 84 Second, Bickerstaff has not presented evidence that the appointment of two ad hoc committees is unprecedented at Vassar. In her deposition, Bickerstaff admitted that there was a recommendation from the Education Department and a recommendation from the Africana Studies Program for Patricia Kauroma. Similarly, she conceded that there were separate recommendations from the Department and the Africana Studies Program for two other faculty members -Moses Nkondo and Tess Onwueme. She also admitted that the basis for her belief that the appointment of two ad hoc committees was unprecedented was limited to herself and a few others. For example, Bickerstaff points out that only one ad hoc committee was appointed to review her application for promotion in 1989. What Bickerstaff has identified, however, is an apparent procedural irregularity in her 1989 application for promotion (which application is not presently before us), rather than an irregularity in 1994. Because there were no faculty members of rank higher than hers in 1989, the director of the Africana Studies Program should have been consulted in the appointment of a committee. Thus, consistent with our previous analysis, the Faculty Handbook required the formation of two ad hoc committees in 1989. The remaining examples that Bickerstaff cites in which Vassar appointed only one ad hoc committee are inapposite; the faculty members under consideration did not hold joint appointments. Accordingly, the use of two ad hoc committees in 1994 was in conformance with the procedures outlined in the Faculty Handbook and, therefore, does not reasonably or logically form the basis of an inference of impermissible discrimination or retaliation for having filed an appeal from her denial of tenure in 1989.
85 Bickerstaff next argues that Vassar departed from procedure by placing undue emphasis on her CEQs as an instrument for evaluating her teaching ability. 86 In support of summary judgment, Vassar submitted the affidavit of Dean Kalin, who opined that CEQs have been the primary evaluative tool used to measure teaching for the purpose of promotional decisions. According to Dean Kalin, though there is no bright line divide at which an applicant's CEQs evidence either marked distinction or teaching of high quality, successful applicants regularly receive seventy to eighty percent of their scores in the top two categories on the key questions of overall effectiveness of the course and overall effectiveness of the instructor. In opposition to summary judgment, Bickerstaff submitted her own affidavit stating that CEQs are not the primary instrument used to evaluate teaching and that Vassar's undue emphasis on her CEQs is evidence that she was treated differently than others. 87 In her deposition testimony, however, Bickerstaff admitted that Vassar relies almost exclusively on CEQs in evaluating teaching. It is beyond cavil that a party may not create an issue of fact by submitting an affidavit in opposition to a summary judgment motion that . . . contradicts the affiant's previous deposition testimony. See, e.g., Hayes v. New York City Dep't of Corrections, 84 F.3d 614, 619 (2d Cir. 1996) (citations omitted). For this reason alone, Bickerstaff's affidavit does not create a genuine issue of material fact. We also note another admission by Bickerstaff confirming the consistent use of CEQs in evaluating teaching ability. Namely, just six months before her own promotional review, Bickerstaff authored a recommendation against tenure for an African-American woman with a joint appointment, in which she herself relied considerably on CEQs in evaluating the candidate's teaching ability. 88 Furthermore, Bickerstaff has not otherwise shown that her CEQs were unduly emphasized in comparison to those of other candidates. Rather, the numerous promotional review materials in the record support Vassar's position that it relies predominantly on CEQs in evaluating teaching ability. The record thus shows that Bickerstaff was treated no differently than other candidates in using CEQs as the chief instrument to assess her qualifications to teach. While it is plain that Bickerstaff and others genuinely take issue with Vassar's emphasis on CEQs as the chief evaluative tool for teaching ability, such disagreement is not relevant to Bickerstaff's discrimination claim. 89 Bickerstaff also contends that Vassar's failure to have her full set of CEQs considered by FASC and the Education Committee is evidence of possible CEQ manipulation and bad faith. We do not believe this is the case for two reasons: first, the evidence does not support a finding of bad faith on the part of Vassar; and second, the initial omission of some of her CEQs from her review packet could not have affected the promotional decision. The allegation of bad faith finds scant support in light of the fact that once Vassar discovered the error, it took corrective action and requested the AS Committee to review Bickerstaff's complete set of CEQs and issue an addendum report. Vassar took additional remedial measures in holding a joint meeting between the President, the Dean, FASC and the AS Committee, in which the question was posed to the AS Committee how it interpreted Bickerstaff's complete set of CEQs. 90 Bickerstaff also has not shown how Vassar's initial failure to include her full set of CEQs in her evaluation packet had any effect on the promotion decision. See Stern, 131 F.3d at 313. Putting aside the curative measures just mentioned, the simple fact is that the missing CEQs did not change the bottom line finding that all six of the decision makers at Vassar agreed upon: 91 Bickerstaff's CEQs were at best neither good nor bad and were, of recent, in marked decline. Bickerstaff herself does not assert -as she cannot -that her CEQs were demonstrably superior to past successful candidates. Bickerstaff's CEQs, in fact, were appreciably lower than those of the six successful candidates in 1994, indicating that Vassar did not point falsely to her teaching ability in denying her promotion. At her deposition, Bickerstaff herself did not dispute that since 1988 there had been a pattern of decline in her CEQs that had become more precipitous in the last two years, 1992-94. 92 At most, Bickerstaff asserts that her overall CEQs are equal to those of a select few past successful candidates. This argument, however, overlooks that Vassar's posted criteria for promotion require [c]ontinued demonstration of . . . teaching of high quality (emphasis supplied). Vassar alone has the right to set its own criteria for promotion and then to evaluate a candidate's fitness for promotion under them. 7 See Gant, 630 F.2d at 67 (A university's prerogative 'to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach' is an important part of our long tradition of academic freedom.) (quoting Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 263 (1957) (Frankfurter, J., joined by Harlan, J., concurring in the result)). Our role is narrowly limited to determining whether an illegitimate discriminatory reason played a motivating role in the employment decision. See Gant, 630 F.2d at 67. Bickerstaff has not presented evidence that an illegal discriminatory motive played a motivating role in Vassar's decision to deny her promotion. Instead, the evidence overwhelmingly supports Vassar's explanation that it denied Bickerstaff promotion for the legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason that she did not satisfy the posted criteria for promotion.