Court Opinion

ID: 9477681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:28:35.084037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:59.469527
License: Public Domain

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I also believe that the judgment should be affirmed, but my reasons are somewhat different from those given by the Court, and I write separately to express them briefly.
Plaintiff’s first claim — that the decision in question was a “salary” or “promotion” decision for purposes of the consent decree, and therefore unlawful because not made according to written sex-neutral criteria— presents primarily an issue of interpretation of the decree. Sennewald wanted a full-time job, as opposed to a part-time one, and if she had received it, her salary would *475have gone up. As an original matter, I should have thought that a decision on such a question would be both a “salary” and a “promotion” decision. A consent decree, however, is a peculiar sort of legal instrument that cannot be read in a vacuum. It is a kind of private law, agreed to by the parties and given shape over time through interpretation by the court that entered it. Here, not only the District Court that entered the decree, but also special masters who have been interpreting it continuously since 1980, have held that the decision of which Sennewald complains was neither a “salary” nor a “promotion” decision within the meaning of the decree. This holding is supported by some extrinsic evidence, in the form of testimony from University officials who helped draft the decree.
In the academic world, “promotion” is apparently a term of art, applying, for example, to a change of status from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor. And the term “salary decision,” in the particular context of this case, is taken to mean not any decision affecting someone’s pay, but rather a decision as to pay made on the basis of an individual’s particular performance and merits, rather than on the basis of the place of that individual’s program in the overall scheme of things. An interpretation of the consent decree concurred in both by the District Court which entered it and by the special masters who have constantly construed it must be given a large measure of deference. It is for this reason that I vote to affirm the District Court’s rejection of Sennewald’s claim based on the consent decree.
She also argues that Title YII was violated, entirely apart from the decree. This claim presents a straight question of fact: was she denied the full-time position because of her sex, or for some legitimate reason? The District Court found against her on this issue, and its finding is not clearly erroneous.
Accordingly, I agree that the judgment should be affirmed.