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Sex discrimination case against universities reinstated

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A federal appeals court said a lower court judge failed to give a plaintiff in a discrimination case a fair hearing, and remanded the case with instructions another judge should consider the litigation.

Audrey K. Miller, who was terminated as a former assistant professor of psychology by Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, filed suit against the university and the Texas State University System under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act alleging sex discrimination, retaliation and a hostile work environment, according to Friday’s ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans in Audrey K. Miller vs. Sam Houston State University; Texas State University System.

A week later, she filed a separate action against the University of Houston Downtown and the University of Houston System also under Title VII, alleging its denial of employment constituted retaliation, in Audrey K. Miler vs. University of Houston System; University of Houston Downtown. The two cases have been consolidated.

The litigation was dismissed by Judge Lynn N. Hughes of U.S. District Court in Houston.

The appeals court ruling said Ms. Miller had been told she was denied tenure at Sam Houston State University “due to her lack of collegiality.” After she filed discrimination and retaliation charges with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the state, she was also denied a salary increase. Her employment with the university ended in May 2014.

She then applied for one of three open faculty positions at the University of Houston, and was one of three candidates to whom a search committee was interested in extending offers of employment. It failed to hire her, though, after her former chairman at Sam Houston was contacted.

Ms. Miller filed her suits in the district court in 2015.

“From the outset of these suits, the district judge’s actions evinced a prejudgment of Miller’s claims,” said a unanimous three-judge appeals court panel. 

The ruling said the judge dismissed the claims at the initial case management conference “countenancing no discussion regarding the dismissal.”

Later in the same conference, he responded to the parties’ opposition to consolidating the two cases by telling Ms. Miller’s counsel “I will get credit for closing two cases when I crush you…How will that look on your record?”

“And things went downhill from there,” said the ruling. The court summarily denied Ms. Miller’s subsequent motion for reconsideration, denied her repeated discovery requests and eventually granted the defendants summary judgment dismissing all claims.

The panel said it was reversing the lower court’s ruling, remanding the case and directing it be reassigned to a new district court judge for further proceedings, “Mindful of the fundamental right to fairness in every proceeding – both in fact and in appearance.”

“Miller, like every litigant, is entitled to a full and fair opportunity to make her case in a fair and impartial forum,” the ruling said. “Beyond that, ‘fundamental to the judiciary is the public’s confidence in the impartiality of our judges and the proceedings over which they preside,’” it said, in citing an earlier case.

Attorneys in the case did not respond to requests for comment.

 

 

 

 

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