A federal judge from the Southern District of Mississippi granted summary judgment to a school district, which was sued by a former male baseball coach, who claimed that the district retaliated against him in violation of Title IX.
Central to the court’s ruling was a lack of evidence of any retaliatory intent on the part of the school district.
The plaintiff in the case was Charles D. Collins, a former math teacher and baseball coach for Jackson Public School District’s Callaway High School. Collins claimed that on November 12 2008, he attended a meeting with several parents and school officials including Dr. Lonnie Edwards, the former superintendent of the District. At that meeting, the parents discussed and spoke out against disparities between opportunities offered to male and female student athletes. Also at that meeting, Collins made a power point presentation, which he had prepared, examining the disparities between the athletic facilities for males and females. In addition, during the meeting he gave to Dr. Edwards a report, which he composed, titled “Unfair Playing Fields: an investigation of Sports-Programs, Facilities, and Funding in the Jackson Public School District of Mississippi.”
Prior to that meeting, Collins drafted a complaint alleging discrimination against female athletes. The complaint, filed with the United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, was signed by James Richardson, a parent of a student enrolled in the District, and notably not Collins.
On October 20, 2009, OCR notified Dr. Edwards, that it was conducting a Title IX investigation. On February 2, 2010, Collins stepped down as Callaway’s head baseball coach, proffering “continued harassment, retaliation, and a general loss of administrative support” as the reasons behind his resignation. At the end of the 2009-2010 school year, Collins was transferred to Capital City Alternative School by former Callaway High Principal, Clinton Johnson. He filed a complaint with the OCR on June 10, 2010, alleging the district retaliated against him for his participation in the previously submitted OCR complaint. On December 6, 2010, OCR closed its investigation of Collins’s complaint, concluding that there was insufficient evidence to support a claim of retaliation. Collins appealed this decision on February 11, 2011. On January 24, 2012, he received notice from the OCR that his appeal was denied and that he had exhausted all avenues of reconsideration with the United States Department of Education.
Shortly thereafter, Collins filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Charge of Discrimination against the district, alleging harassment and retaliation. On March 16, 2012, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) issued to Collins a notice of right to sue. Collins did sue, on April 23, 2012, alleging three counts of retaliation in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., and 34 C.F.R. §100.7(e), and one count of breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
On June 3, 2013, the school district moved to dismiss or in the alternative move for summary judgment.
In considering the arguments, the court leaned heavily on Jackson v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 544 U.S. 167, 184, 125 S. Ct. 1497, 161 L. Ed. 2d 361 (2005) and other cases. “To establish a prima facie case of retaliation, the plaintiff must demonstrate: (1) that he participated in a statutorily protected activity; (2) he was subjected to an adverse employment action; and (3) a causal connection or link between the protected activity and the adverse action,” it wrote citing Alack v. Beau Rivage Resorts, Inc. 286 F. Supp. 2d 771, 773 (S.D. Miss. 2003).
The school district’s core argument, “based on the confines of Jackson,” was that Collins “does not qualify as a proper Title IX plaintiff because he did not engage in protected activity,” based on the notion that he did not himself protest Title IX sex discrimination, but only drafted a complaint which he neither signed nor was a named complainant, and that this action alone “does not cloak him with statutory protection.”
The judge disagreed, writing that the school district’s “reading of Jackson and its application to this case is misplaced because Collins did engage in protected activity.
“Collins was not a subject of the complaint filed by James Richardson, unknowing or otherwise,” wrote the court. “As previously discussed though, he was the drafter of the initial Title IX grievance. In fact, Collins was more than the drafter. He was also the conductor. He produced and conducted a power point presentation before Dr. Edwards during the meeting with the concerned parents. That power point presentation exhibited the gender disparities between athletic facilities in the school district. At that meeting, he also gave Dr. Edwards the report which he prepared, titled ‘UNFAIR PLAYING FIELDS: an investigation of Sports — Programs, Facilities, and Funding in the Jackson Public School District of Jackson Mississippi.’ His participation in these ways creates a reasonable inference that his journalistic contribution was indeed an act of ‘speak[ing] out.’ Jackson, 544 U.S. at 179. He was personally engaged in the meeting — in the speaking out. Hence, Collins is a victim of discriminatory retaliation if retribution occurred due to his speaking out, ‘regardless of whether he was the subject of the original complaint.’ Id.”
Turning to whether the adverse actions constituted retaliation, Collins alleged that he was retaliated against in a number of ways, but that “they generally fall into three categories: (1) he received negative or poor evaluations; (2) the District mishandled his grievance; and (3) he was transferred to the alternative school.” The things about which Collins cries foul do not amount to adverse employment actions, the school district argues, because “adverse employment actions only include ‘ultimate employment decisions such as hiring, granting leave, discharging, promoting, or compensating.’”
In the first claimed instance, the court noted that a negative evaluation by an administrator, who was unaware of the Title IX controversy, does not qualify as an adverse action.
As for whether the district’s alleged “mishandling” of the grievance equated to retaliation, the court found, similarly to the first instance, that “there is no evidence in the record” that the person Collins accuses of denying him of his grievance, “was even aware that Collins participated in a Title IX complaint.”
Finally, the court was also unpersuaded regarding Collins’s argument that his transfer to the alternative school was “retaliatory because it was in violation of his employment contract and that it was designed to force him to terminate his employment.”
Transfer to a new position “can be a demotion where the new position proves objectively worse regardless of whether the transfer resulted in a decrease in pay, title or grade because some changes may be so substantial that they alter the terms, conditions or privileges of employment,” wrote the court. “What is absent from this case is evidence that the conditions at the Capitol City Alternative School were objectively worse.”
Second Collins “failed to adduce any probative evidence to support the allegation that his transfer was punitive, and he has not refuted the legitimate explanations for the transfer offered by the district. … (C)onsequently, summary judgment on this ground is appropriate as well.”
Charles D. Collins v. Jackson Public School District; S.D. Miss.; CIVIL NO. 3:12-CV-273-CWR-FKB, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138627; 9/30/14
Attorneys of Record: (for plaintiff, pro se) Charles D. Collins, Riverdale, GA. (for defendant) JoAnne N. Shepherd, JACKSON PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT, Jackson, MS; KaShonda L. Day, JACKSON PUBLIC SCHOOLS, Jackson, MS.
