Opinion ID: 39271
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: associate degree from Southern in 1997 and a

Text: The former plaintiff, Imogene Khan, began bachelors degree from Louisiana Tech in 1998. He working in the police department of Southern was also completing an MBA program at Central UniversitySSShreveport (“Southern”) in Michigan University. He served as a Southern 1990.1 While at Southern, Khan was both the police officer, and his evaluations were consistently only white and the only female member of the strong. Southern police force. Sam Gilliam, who 3 served briefly as interim Chancellor until April Early alleges the following facts in his brief: 1, 1999, appointed her to the interim position that he scored several points higher than Khan on of Lieutenant/Chief in January 1999. the civil service exam, but she had more tenure; that Morris’s performance history was inferior to that of Khan, whose evaluations reflected her supeDuring her tenure as interim chief, Khan rior record; and that Morris was permitted to resign applied for permanent appointment to that po- rather than face disciplinary action for unsition. She was the most senior member of the acceptable conduct. Morris also worked at the force, and her performance evaluations were Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office as a corrections ofexemplary. When Khan became Chief on ficer and a communications/radio room operator; January 6, 1999, Ben Pugh, Southern’s Vice- he resigned after being recommended for terminaChancellor, temporarily appointed Richard tion. He was subject to disciplinary action for sleeping on the job and being away from his work area on repeated occasions. He had two prior ar- rests: one for false imprisonment that was ex-  punged in 1997, and one for issuing worthless Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has de- termined that this opinion should not be published checks. and is not precedent except under the limited cir- cumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4. On his civil service application for police chief, Morris apparently responded that he had never 1 Khan settled claims against the defendants; we resigned from a job to avert termination. Southern discuss facts surrounding her claims only to the learned that he had falsified his application in that extent they are material here. respect. 2 associated with her. Early made his support Amendment and qualified immunity claims. for her public and also disclosed that he had They devote most of their argument to the observed race and sex discrimination against substantive merits of the various claims. To her. the extent that this appeal is from an interlocutory order, we consider only those issues eli- Early alleges that he suffered severe retalia- gible for interlocutory review. tion as a result of his support for Khan by seeking to place him on the midnight shift and Generally we do not have jurisdiction over accusing him of stealing computers. Southern denials of motions to dismiss or motions for authorities ultimately divested Early and Khan summary judgment, because such pretrial orof certain supervisory responsibilities, includ- ders are not final decisions for purposes of 28 ing the ability to discipline inferior officers and U.S.C. § 1291, which provides that courts of perform background checks. appeals have jurisdiction over appeals from final decisions of the district courts. There Khan and Early took sick leave in October are, however, exceptions for certain types of 1999, citing the stress and harassment they immunity rulings. were experiencing. Early claims that Southern officials made it difficult for him to obtain his II. pay by questioning his exercise of sick leave. A. Southern terminated Early in March 2000, and The district court denied defendants’ moKhan in May 2000. tion to dismiss and motion for summary judgment that were based on sovereign immunity.4 In December 1999 Khan signed EEOC The collateral order doctrine furnishes us with questionnaires containing specific claims of jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal from discrimination. She signed a formal charge a denial of a summary judgment motion asthat the EEOC sent to Southern in November serting sovereign immunity.5 The defendants of 2000. In September 2001 the EEOC issued contend that the denial of the motions to disKhan a right to sue letter. miss and for summary judgment was error. This is a legal question that we review de