Onyiah v. St. Cloud State University and Board of Trustees

Background

Leonard C. Onyiah, a statistics professor at St. Cloud State University, sued four colleagues—Peiyi Zhao, Daniel Gregory, Dale Buske, and Melissa Hanszek-Brill. He alleged that they retaliated against him for exercising legal rights and discriminated against him based on race and national origin in decisions about his teaching assignments and related matters.

Onyiah brought the claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the federal civil-rights statute that allows claims against state actors, alleging violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. His retaliation theory changed during the case: he abandoned the First Amendment theory the defendants had briefed and instead relied on retaliation under § 1981. The court considered the complaint sufficient to treat it as asserting that theory, although the complaint did not expressly identify it.

Retaliation claim

A § 1981 retaliation claim requires proof that the plaintiff engaged in legally protected activity, suffered a materially adverse action, and showed that the protected activity was the but-for cause of the action. The court held that Onyiah did not establish the materially adverse-action element.

The court found that the evidence did not support some of Onyiah’s descriptions of the challenged events. For example, a course was not reassigned from Onyiah to another professor; instead, his suggestion to reassign courses was not accepted, the class size was increased, and he was not required to teach a second section. The court also found that Onyiah was consulted about his Spring 2016 teaching schedule. The decision not to allow him to participate in the S2S program while on sabbatical was made by John Burgeson, and Onyiah identified no evidence that any defendant participated in that decision.

The remaining scheduling decisions did not show a material disadvantage. Although Onyiah objected to back-to-back Tuesday and Thursday classes in Spring 2016 and a canceled Summer 2018 course, he identified no resulting harm to his compensation, career, or textbook. The court also found no sufficiently close timing between Onyiah’s earlier protected activities and the challenged decisions to support causation, and he offered no other clear causation theory.

The court further held that, even if Onyiah had established an initial retaliation case, the defendants had provided legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons for their decisions, including student demand, enrollment, graduation requirements, student expectations, and the projected need for particular courses. The court found that Onyiah did not present evidence showing those reasons were a pretext, or false explanation, for retaliation.

Race-discrimination claim

For the race-discrimination claim, the court applied the burden-shifting framework commonly used when there is no direct evidence of discrimination. Under that framework, a plaintiff must show protected status, satisfactory job performance, an adverse employment action, and circumstances suggesting discrimination. If the employer provides a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason, the plaintiff must then show that reason was pretextual.

Onyiah relied primarily on the denial of learning assistants in 2014. The court held that this was not an adverse employment action because he identified no material employment disadvantage from the denial. The court noted that a learning assistant is an undergraduate student who helps facilitate classroom discussion and that minor changes in duties or working conditions, without a significant disadvantage, do not meet the legal standard. The court stated that, even if the denial were adverse, defendants had identified legitimate reasons for it and Onyiah had not attempted to show those reasons were pretextual.

Onyiah also alleged that Gregory refused to assign him to teach on-campus courses during Summer 2016 while assigning Buske and Hanszek-Brill to teach. The court held that the evidence showed Gregory was not involved in choosing the faculty or courses; his role was limited to approving the schedule proposed by the Mathematics and Statistics Department. Because Onyiah did not identify evidence of Gregory’s personal involvement in a constitutional violation, this theory could not support liability under § 1983.

Disposition

The court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment and dismissed the action with prejudice. It ordered that judgment be entered.