A former law school faculty member at the University of the District of Columbia failed to provide any evidence that gender or race discrimination was responsible for her denial of tenure, a federal judge has ruled.
The decision dismissed a suit against the university and its president by Stephanie Brown, an African-American woman who applied in 2009 for tenure and promotion to full professor. A faculty committee and her dean recommended tenure, but the provost and tenure committee did not. The university then declined to renew her fixed-term contract at the end of the 2011-12 academic year.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said Brown “alleges no set of facts beyond threadbare and conclusory assertions from which a reasonable person could infer how her gender or race caused her tenure rejection, as opposed to any other non-discriminatory basis.”
Brown contended that the university subjected her to different review criteria than a White male professor who received tenure in 2010, but Leon found no support for the conclusory allegation that she was equally, if not more qualified” than her White colleague and was “subject to the typical double standard rooted in the history of race discrimination in American jurisprudence.”
The decision noted that the president of UDC is Black and the provost is a woman.
Leon also threw out claims for breach of contract and wrongful termination.
Brown will appeal, according to her attorney, Donald Temple of Washington. A lawyer for the university, Yoora Pak, declined to comment on the case.
