Opinion ID: 42939
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Equal Protection Class of One Claim

Text: 45 Under the standard set out in Vill. of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 120 S.Ct. 1073, 145 L.Ed.2d 1060 (2000), for a class of one claim to withstand summary judgment, Dr. Whiting must have established genuine questions of material fact as to whether 1) she was intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated in the tenure process and 2) if different standards for tenure were applied, that there [was] no rational basis for the difference in treatment. 3 Id. at 564, 120 S.Ct. 1073. 46 In support of her claim, Dr. Whiting reviewed the CVs of other professors who had traversed the process and received tenure at USM. She argues that her dossier documents a far greater array of accomplishments than possessed by others who had received tenure. All but two of these professors, some of whom belonged to other departments of the university, had gone through the tenure process at different times, were evaluated by different committees, and sought different positions than Dr. Whiting. Of the remaining two, one came from a different department, and the other worked in a different area of teaching and research. Dr. Whiting does not contest that both she and other tenure applicants are evaluated under the three handbook criteria of teaching, research, and service. Instead, she argues that those individual criteria were applied differently to her such that she had to meet a different set of requirements. 47 To evaluate her arguments, we must first determine whether or not Dr. Whiting, in her CV review, trawled a pool of similarly situated individuals. She argues that acceptable breadth of comparison is wide, encompassing all faculty at the university who apply for tenure at USM at any time, as all are subject to the same procedures and criteria for tenure. Appellees, by contrast, argue that applicants who underwent tenure evaluation at a different time, in a different field of expertise, are not thought of as similarly situated to Dr. Whiting given the wide-ranging differences in what might constitute, for example, consistently high quality research within different disciplines or at different points in USM's history. The argument seems to narrow the field too finely, however. 48 Precedent from this court suggests that at somewhat broader scope is more appropriate. See, e.g., Levi v. Univ. of Tex. at San Antonio, 840 F.2d 277, 280 (5th Cir. 1988) (in which the court accepts without argument that two professors applying for tenure in the same division at the same time were similarly situated when one taught sociology and one psychology). Even accepting this standard as setting the breadth of comparison, Dr. Whiting compares herself to at least one other person in her department, who applied for tenure at the same time. Assuming, arguendo, that Dr. Whiting has met her burden for establishing different treatment of similarly situated individuals, she must also have shown that there was no rational basis for the decision to deny tenure. 49 To withstand a motion for summary judgment, however, Dr. Whiting must have established that a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether any rational basis could exist for the government's action. See, Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (establishing standard for non-moving party in summary judgment motion); Bd. of Trustees of the Univ. of Alabama v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356, 367, 121 S.Ct. 955, 148 L.Ed.2d 866 (2001) (the burden is upon the challenging party to negative `any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification.' (quoting Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 320, 113 S.Ct. 2637, 125 L.Ed.2d 257 (1993), in turn quoting FCC v. Beach Commc'ns, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 313, 113 S.Ct. 2096, 124 L.Ed.2d 211 (1993))); see also, Levi, 840 F.2d at 280 (the rational-basis test generally requires only that the relation to the state's purpose be `at least debatable'). In applying this test to equal protection claims regarding tenure decisions, this court has held that 50 [the test] does not permit a judge or jury simply to second-guess University officials' academic judgment concerning a tenure decision ... To the extent a decision concerning a teacher's or student's academic performance requires an expert evaluation of cumulative information, it lends itself poorly to judicial review. Levi, 840 F.2d at 280 (internal citations omitted). 51 In Levi, the plaintiff alleged an equal protection violation where undue emphasis had been placed on his tendency to grade too leniently, a focus not used in evaluating another professor for tenure. Id. Plaintiff first challenged the rationality of the grounds on which the university based his denial of tenure. He alleged a number of irrational grounds for this discrepancy in treatment, and asserted the inference that the university had given out rational grounds for his dismissal as a pretext for a decision actually taken out of irrational ill-will. Id. at 281. Nonetheless, the court found that in each case the university proffered a debatably rational justification. Id. In these circumstances, this court held that the plaintiff had failed to show that the university's behavior was irrational, even where such behavior may have appeared unwise. Accordingly, the court granted a motion for directed verdict against the plaintiff, noting that such decisions call[] for the exercise of professional judgment, and a reasonable jury could not find that the University officials failed to exercise that judgment or ventured `beyond the pale of reasoned academic decision-making.' Id. 52 The instant case is similar. Dr. Whiting is alleging that different standards were applied to evaluate her under the research portion of the tenure criteria. She further alleges that the rational reasons put forth by the defendants are no more than pretext for the underlying, irrational reason for her denial of tenure, i.e., President Thames's purported bias against her as a result of the ill will his daughter, Dr. Thames, bore her. As in Dr. Levi's case, however, [a]ll of these decisions were at least debatable, and none reveals a failure to exercise professional judgment. Id. at 281. Dr. Whiting has thus failed to meet her burden of proof on that standard when under summary judgment review.