Opinion ID: 2982559
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fourth-year review

Text: The record reveals that Plaintiff’s fourth-year review was not a vehicle for prohibited retaliation. The fourth-year review was something of a mini-tenure review with a similar number of steps. For the first step, Dr. William Hayton, an Associate Dean at the COP, prepared a letter summarizing Plaintiff’s teaching, scholarship, and service. Hayton criticized the amount and quality of Plaintiff’s scholarship, and noted that it was unclear if Plaintiff’s finding came from peer-reviewed sources. Hayton recommended a positive fourth-year review, but noted that “issues of significant concern require attention and should be resolved by the time of evaluation for tenure.” (R. 38-8, Fourth-Year Review, at 1583.) Plaintiff does not accuse Hayton of -18- No. 13-3029 harboring a retaliatory animus—important because Hayton’s critiques were echoed again and again by internal and external reviewers of Plaintiff’s record. With Hayton’ s letter and letters from four outside reviewers in hand, the COP faculty discussed and voted on Plaintiffs record. Twelve faculty members voted for a positive review; eight voted no. Dr. James Dalton, the Chair of the Tenure Committee (and another person whom Plaintiff has not accused of harboring a retaliatory animus), summarized the faculty’s discussion in a letter to Brueggemeier dated March 14, 2007. The letter noted that the faculty’s discussion of Plaintiff had been mixed, and that even though the vote had been positive, several areas required improvement before tenure review. Like Hayton, the faculty believed that Plaintiff needed to publish more research in a clearly defined area of specialization. Also like Hayton, the faculty believed that Plaintiff should work to obtain more funding from competitive funding sources. Finally, Brueggemeier wrote his own letter to the University Provost summarizing Plaintiffs achievements. Brueggemeier’ s recommendations were essentially indistinguishable from those of Hayton and the COP faculty—he recommended a positive fourth-year review “with very clear expectations for critical improvements in teaching and research prior to the tenure and promotion decision.” (Id at 1573.) Brueggemeier parroted the suggestions for Plaintiffs future research and, like Hayton and the faculty, stressed the need to obtain funding from competitive, peer-reviewed sources. However, unlike Hayton or the faculty, Brueggemeier also urged that these sources of funding should be federal agencies. Plaintiff points out that federal funding, which is considered the gold standard in the field, constitutes an unreasonable expectation for a young professor. Indeed, Plaintiffs peers at the COP were not required to gain federal funding at similar stages of their career. -19- No. 13-3029 But Plaintiff overstates matters when he attempts to cast Brueggemeier’s push for federal funding as evidence of retaliation. Brueggemeier’ s letter was almost entirely consistent with the other evaluations that, combined, made up Plaintiffs fourth-year review. Brueggemeier’ s letter also meshes with the numerous other reviews Plaintiff received during his time at the COP. Plaintiffs research was repeatedly deemed either unsatisfactory or in need of improvement. Only in his 2007 and 2008 reviews did Plaintiff receive “good/excellent” marks on his research. There is no meaningful distinction between Brueggemeier’ s letter and the opinions of Hayton, Dalton, the external reviewers, and the COP faculty. Plaintiff does not argue that Hayton, Dalton, and many of the COP faculty members were attempting to retaliate against him. We fail to see how Brueggemeier’s substantively identical letter could have been a vehicle for retaliation.