Opinion ID: 840228
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Provost

Text: Even if plaintiff could demonstrate that the dean intended to retaliate against plaintiff for filing the EOO complaint, plaintiff, in my judgment, still has not submitted sufficient evidence to create a jury question regarding causation. That is, with regard to the tenure decision, the dean was not the ultimate decision-maker; the provost was. Thus, plaintiff must argue either that the dean's animus may be imputed to the provost or that the dean's approval was necessary for tenure to be granted, thereby making him the de facto decision-maker. This Court has held that a plaintiff cannot bring a valid claim of discrimination where he has failed to establish[ ] that the ultimate decision maker harbored any racial animus toward [the plaintiff]. Dep't of Civil Rights ex rel. Burnside v. Fashion Bug of Detroit, 473 Mich. 863, 702 N.W.2d 154 (2005). However, under some circumstances, courts have imputed the bias of non-decision-makers to the ultimate decision-maker. See, e.g., Harrison v. Olde Financial Corp., 225 Mich.App. 601, 609 n. 7, 572 N.W.2d 679 (1997). The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has stated that bias may be imputed when the decision makers themselves, or those who provide input into the decision, express such feelings (1) around the time of, and (2) in reference to, the adverse employment action complained of. Hunt v. City of Markham, 219 F.3d 649, 652 (C.A.7, 2000). In such circumstances, it may be possible to infer that the decision makers were influenced by those feelings in making their decision. Id. at 653. On the other hand, discriminatory intent should not be imputed to the ultimate decision-maker when that decision-maker consulted various persons in making the decision, one of whom had allegedly uttered a discriminatory remark, because generally [s]tatements made by inferior employees are not probative of an intent to discriminate by the decisionmaker. Aungst v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 937 F.2d 1216, 1221 (C.A.7, 1991). Here, plaintiff has not produced evidence that the dean made any allegedly retaliatory remarks about plaintiff to the provost around the time of the tenure decision. The comments about the sitar and curried lamb were made over a year before the provost's decision, were not in reference to the tenure decision, and were not made to or in the vicinity of the provost. Moreover, defendant produced considerable evidence that the provost's decision was based not only on the dean's recommendation, but also on the recommendations of two separate committees, as well as outside recommendations from solicited reviewers and other independent materials. Hence, any retaliatory bias on the part of the dean may not be properly imputed to the provost. Nor is there evidence that the provost here acts merely as a cat's paw for or rubber-stamps a decision, report, or recommendation actually made by a subordinate, or that the dean is the actual decisionmaker or the one principally responsible for the contested employment decision. Hill v. Lockheed Martin Logistics Management, Inc., 354 F.3d 277, 290 (C.A.4, 2004). Plaintiff asserts that because the provost could not remember a specific faculty member who was given tenure over a dean's recommendation of denial (although the provost testified that it had occurred), sufficient evidence has been presented that the dean was the actual decision-maker. However, it is not defendant's burden to produce some statistical minimum of cases in which tenure decisions have been made by the provost over the dean's objections. Simply put, there is no obligation on the part of a decision-maker to show some minimum number of disagreements with a subordinate in order to demonstrate that she, and not the subordinate, is, in fact, the decision-maker. Here, the provost stands in a clearly superior decision-making position in defendant's hierarchy relative to the dean; it is uncontradicted that the provost considered recommendations of persons and committees from other than the dean, and it is uncontradicted that the provost conducted a de novo review of each tenure application and reached an ultimate conclusion based on all the material submitted to her. Under these circumstances, I do not believe that plaintiff has created a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether the provost was the actual decision-maker with regard to his failure to achieve tenure.