Xanthakos v. City University of New York

Background

Kay Xanthakos alleged that she had worked at the City University of New York for more than twenty years and served as University Chief Architect and an Assistant Director. She claimed that several male colleagues were paid more than she was despite having fewer qualifications, less experience, or comparable responsibilities. She alleged that she repeatedly complained about unequal pay, including in a written response to a performance review and through a discrimination claim sent by her attorney to CUNY’s General Counsel.

Xanthakos also alleged that, after her complaints, supervisors reduced her responsibilities, reassigned larger projects to male employees, assigned her smaller projects outside her job description, excluded her from meetings and a holiday luncheon, withheld work-related information, and applied different standards to her work. Separately, she alleged that she raised concerns that the proposed design of CUNY’s Lehman Concert Hall did not comply with accessibility requirements, including requirements concerning wheelchair seating and entry and exit access.

She asserted claims for gender-based pay discrimination and retaliation under the Equal Pay Act, Title VII, Section 1983, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. She also asserted retaliation claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, as well as gender-discrimination and retaliation claims under Title IX.

Motion to dismiss standard

The defendants moved to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 12(b)(1) concerns the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6) concerns whether the complaint states a legally sufficient claim. At this stage, the court accepted the complaint’s well-pleaded factual allegations as true and considered whether they plausibly supported relief.

The court concluded that it had federal-question jurisdiction over the federal claims and supplemental jurisdiction over the related state and city claims. To the extent the defendants’ jurisdictional motion had not been abandoned, the court denied it.

Pay-discrimination claims

The court denied the motion to dismiss Xanthakos’s Equal Pay Act claim. The court held that her allegations plausibly showed that she was paid less than male employees who performed substantially equal work requiring comparable skill, effort, and responsibility. The court noted that the Equal Pay Act focuses on actual job content rather than job titles, and that whether positions are substantially equal is generally a fact question.

The court also denied the motion to dismiss her gender-based pay-discrimination claims under Title VII, Section 1983, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. The allegations that male colleagues received higher salaries, combined with alleged differences in treatment by supervisors and CUNY’s failure to address her repeated complaints, were sufficient at the pleading stage to support a plausible inference that sex motivated the pay disparity.

Retaliation claims based on pay complaints

The court denied the motion to dismiss Xanthakos’s retaliation claims under Title VII, the Equal Pay Act, Section 1983, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. The court found that the alleged loss of responsibilities, reassignment to smaller or outside-the-job-description projects, exclusion from meetings and office events, lack of performance reviews, and denial of information could qualify as adverse actions.

The court also found a plausible connection between Xanthakos’s complaints and the alleged retaliation. It relied on the alleged hostile response to her written complaint, statements that she should not have complained and that the complaint would make things worse, and the timing of the alleged adverse actions. The court noted that some Title VII retaliation allegations were subject to a 300-day filing limit and that the precise timing would need to be established later. It nevertheless denied the motion to dismiss the Title VII retaliation claim because recurring conduct might have occurred within the applicable period.

ADA and Rehabilitation Act retaliation claims

The court granted the motion to dismiss Xanthakos’s retaliation claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. The court assumed, for purposes of its analysis, that her repeated complaints about the concert hall’s accessibility could constitute protected activity even though accessibility issues were related to her job duties.

The court concluded, however, that she had not plausibly alleged that any adverse action resulted from those accessibility complaints. Xanthakos did not claim that the alleged adverse actions were caused by her concert-hall complaints, and the court noted that the alleged actions occurred, at the earliest, about two years after her last complaint about the design.

Title IX claims

The court granted the motion to dismiss Xanthakos’s Title IX gender-discrimination and retaliation claims. It held that Title VII is the exclusive remedy for employees alleging sex discrimination in employment and that Title IX does not provide an implied private right of action for those employment claims in this context. The court reasoned that allowing such a Title IX action would disrupt Title VII’s remedial system, including its requirement that employees first pursue administrative remedies through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Disposition

In Xanthakos v. City University of New York, Judge Valerie Caproni ordered that the defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part. The court dismissed the Title IX gender-discrimination claim, the Title IX retaliation claim, the ADA retaliation claim, and the Rehabilitation Act retaliation claim. The court denied the motion as to the remaining claims, allowing those claims to continue at that stage.