Court Opinion

ID: 9498318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:14:35.738146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:45.937085
License: Public Domain

FLAUM, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Although I agree with the result reached by the majority and join its opinion with respect to plaintiffs disparate impact claim, I disagree with the Court’s resolution of plaintiffs disparate treatment claim. I would affirm the district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of Butler on the ground that the denial of the PEP award is not an adverse employment action.
While I agree with the Court that the PEP award has characteristics of both a raise and a bonus, I conclude that it much more closely resembles a bonus, and that the denial of the award is not actionable under Title VII. See Hunt v. City of Markham, 219 F.3d 649, 654 (7th Cir.2000); Miller v. Am. Family Mut. Ins. Co., 203 F.3d 997, 1006 (7th Cir.2000). Unlike most raises, the PEP award was not the “norm for workers who perform satisfactorily.” Hunt, 219 F.3d at 654. Rather, the PEP program was conceived *618as a way to reward a few distinguished faculty members “who had demonstrated sustained excellence in scholarship, teaching and service.” The discretionary raise at issue in Power v. Summers, 226 F.3d 815 (7th Cir.2000) is quite different from the PEP award and helps highlight the exceptional nature of the PEP award. Although the raise in Summers was discretionary, most faculty members received one; indeed, the university appropriated sufficient funds to grant each faculty member an average raise of $1,000. Id. at 819. The PEP award, by contrast, was bestowed on only a few professors who were selected by a faculty committee after a rigorous application process. Neither the permanent nature of the salary increase nor the announcement of the PEP awards in a regular, annual presentation made the award a “normal and expected element” of a faculty member’s salary or entitled faculty members to count on receiving the award. Fyfe v. City of Fort Wayne, 241 F.3d 597, 602 (7th Cir.2001).
I would therefore affirm the grant of summary judgment in favor of Butler on the ground that plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case of disparate treatment.