From Magistrate Judge J. Boone Baxter’s Report and Recommendation in Greig v. Texas A&M Univ. Texarkana, adopted Thursday by District Judge Rodney Gilstrap (E.D. Tex.):
Plaintiff Carl Greig … alleges he is a fifty-eight year old white male who worked for TAMUT as the Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs for approximately twenty-five years. According to Plaintiff, part of his job duties included investigating student complaints about other students’ violations of TAMUT’s Code of Conduct and other offensive behavior. Plaintiff alleges he received favorable reviews until July 2022 and had never been discipled or told that his job performance fell below acceptable standards prior to July 2022. Plaintiff alleges he was discriminated against on the basis of race based on a single incident where he investigated, but did not discipline, a student who used a negative racial epithet. Specifically, Plaintiff alleges as follows:
In August of 2021, a student (“Student 1”) filed a written complaint with [Plaintiff’s] office complaining that another student (“Student 2”) had used the word “Nigga” in her presence while on a trip to the mall several months earlier (Spring 2021). At the time the offensive word was used, the students were good friends and Student 1 did not complain that she was offended by Student 2’s statement. The students’ friendship deteriorated after the Spring of 2021 and then had a series of interpersonal problems including, but not limited to, Student 1 complaining to [Plaintiff] about Student 2’s offensive statement and Student 2 claiming that Student 1 had threatened to “beat her ass.”
[Plaintiff] knew of the students’ long history of interpersonal conflict. [Plaintiff] conducted a thorough investigation into Student 1’s complaint. [Plaintiff] conducted research regarding Student 2’s First Amendment rights and sought guidance from the System General Counsel and the TAMU System Title IX Coordinator on how to respond to Student 1’s complaint. Based on advice he received from both legal counsel and the TAMU System Title IX Coordinator and [Plaintiff’s] own research, [Plaintiff] decided that punishing Student 2 would violate her First Amendment rights and that she had not violated the Student Code of Conduct in effect at that time. [Plaintiff] counselled Student 2 on three separate occasions about how offensive the word she used was and advised her not to use the word again.
Student 1 was dissatisfied that [Plaintiff] had not removed Student 2 from her position on Student Government and in a sorority and elevated her complaint to the President who assigned the investigation to the Human Resources Department that had no authority over or involvement with student complaints. The Human Resources Director conducted her own investigation into Student 2’s statement and ultimately did not punish Student 2.
Plaintiff alleges TAMUT began reducing his job duties following the Human Resource Director’s investigation; removed Plaintiff from investigating any student complaint that involved race and from any involvement in any Title IX case; and cancelled, without explanation, an open position for which Plaintiff had selected a candidate. Plaintiff further alleges as follows:
In the aftermath of [Plaintiff’s] decision not to discipline Student 2, Defendant held a “Town Meeting,” open to students and faculty. At the Town Meeting, a faculty member demanded that [Plaintiff] be replaced by a person of color. Defendant’s President attended the Town Hall and did not reject the faculty member’s demand. In November 2021, [Plaintiff’s] supervisor, the Vice President of Student Affairs, advised him that he should consider looking for a new job because Defendant intended to blame [Plaintiff] for all race-related issues after his failure to punish Student 2. [Plaintiff’s] supervisor also said [Plaintiff] made the right decision not to punish Student 2.
According to Plaintiff, shortly thereafter, Plaintiff’s supervisor resigned, and TAMUT replaced Plaintiff’s supervisor with an interim Vice President. Plaintiff alleges that in March of 2022, the interim Vice President began to criticize Plaintiff’s job performance and alleged performance deficiencies, including incidents from several years prior and a list of complaints from students and employees; Plaintiff responded to the interim Vice President’s allegations, after which time TAMUT never addressed the allegations with Plaintiff.
According to Plaintiff, in July of 2022, for the first time in his twenty-five years’ of employment, Plaintiff received a “not meeting expectations” rating on his yearly evaluation and was told by the interim Vice President that the students wanted someone younger in Plaintiff’s position and that he felt Plaintiff could not relate to people of color. Plaintiff alleges he was given no guidance or goals to follow to improve his allegedly deficient performance and instead was told in August of 2022 that he must resign or be terminated. Upon information and belief, Plaintiff was replaced by an African-American female who is several years younger than Plaintiff.
Plaintiff sued for race discrimination, and the court concluded the case could go forward:
Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged that an adverse employment action was taken against him because of his race. Plaintiff has provided dates and details leading to his termination. Specifically, Plaintiff has alleged two times when either a supervisor or a faculty member suggested Plaintiff should be replaced by a person of color or could not relate to students of color.
TAMUT argues Plaintiff’s allegations are purely conclusory and inadequate to “raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” According to TAMUT, the alleged statements from Plaintiff’s prior supervisor, while “suggestively conspiratorial,” provide “no support for Plaintiff’s claim that an adverse employment action was taken against him on the basis of race.” TAMUT Motion at 5 (stating the supervisor is both unidentified and “by Plaintiff’s own admission had left university employment months before Plaintiff’s termination, which occurred in August 2022”). Regarding the alleged statement from the Interim Vice President of Student Affairs informing Plaintiff that students at TAMUT felt Plaintiff could not connect to people of color, TAMUT argues this “statement alone would readily be understood as a communication of a serious performance issue, given Plaintiff was responsible for investigating student complaints relating to race and such investigations necessarily involve a degree of interpersonal skill.” TAMUT argues generalized feedback regarding Plaintiff’s interpersonal skills from the student body or employees cannot be said to provide support for Plaintiff’s claim that he was subject to adverse employment actions because of his race but rather shows the opposite: that the student body, and apparently one faculty member, felt Plaintiff’s job performance was unsatisfactory, and communicated that to Plaintiff’s interim supervisor….
At this stage of the proceeding, a plaintiff need only plausibly allege facts going to the ultimate elements of the claim to survive a motion to dismiss. The Court finds Plaintiff has alleged sufficient facts, interpreted in the light most favorable to him, regarding whether an adverse employment action was taken against him because of his protected status and “nudged [his] claims across the line from conceivable to plausible.” …
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