New England Biz Law Update
A jury can decide whether Texas A&M University-Texarkana discriminated against a White administrator on the basis of race when it forced him to resign after 25 years of employment and replaced him with a younger Black woman, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has ruled.
Judge J. Boone Baxter denied cross-motions for summary judgment filed in an employment discrimination lawsuit brought by Carl Greig, a former Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs, against his former employer Texas A&M University Texarkana (TAMUT).
Greig alleges TAMUT discriminated against him on the basis of race by reducing his job duties and ultimately terminating his employment after 25 years with the university.
According to court documents, the issues began after Greig investigated but did not discipline a student for using a racial epithet. Greig claims TAMUT reassigned all race-related complaints from him and a White female subordinate to two Black employees. He was later forced to resign.
Case background
Carl Greig, a fifty-eight-year-old White male, worked at TAMUT for approximately twenty-five years. His job duties included investigating student complaints about violations of the university’s code of conduct and other offensive behavior. Greig alleges he received favorable reviews until July 2022 and had never been disciplined or told that his job performance fell below acceptable standards prior to that time.
In August 2021, Greig investigated a complaint from a student (“Student 1”) who claimed that another student (“Student 2”) had used a racial epithet in her presence during a trip to the mall several months earlier.
After conducting an investigation, seeking legal guidance, and considering Student 2’s First Amendment rights, Greig decided not to punish Student 2, as he determined she had not violated the student code of conduct. Instead, he counseled her on three separate occasions about the offensive nature of the word and advised her not to use it again.
Dissatisfied with the outcome, Student 1 elevated her complaint to the university president, who assigned the investigation to the human resources department, which also chose not to punish Student 2.
Greig alleges that TAMUT began reducing his job duties and cancelled an open position for which he had been a candidate. Greig also alleges TAMUT held a town hall during which a faculty member publicly demanded that Greig be replaced by a person of color.
Shortly thereafter, Greig was assigned a new supervisor who began finding performance deficiencies, leading to his first negative performance review. One month later he was told to resign, or he would be terminated.
Insufficient evidence for summary judgment
In its motion, TAMUT argued that Greig failed to show sufficient facts to establish a prima facie case of race discrimination under Title VII. However, the judge found Greig presented enough circumstantial evidence, if believed by a jury, to potentially prove TAMUT’s stated reasons for the adverse employment actions were pretext for race discrimination.
This evidence included Greig’s long positive employment history, warnings from his former supervisor that he was being targeted, an alleged statement by his new supervisor that Greig could not relate to people of color, lack of guidance on how Greig could improve performance, and the short timeframe between the unfavorable review and Greig’s termination.
