A federal district court in eastern Pennsylvania backed Philadelphia-based Drexel University’s argument that a White male direct report resisted being supervised by a Black compliance exec because of her management style and not because of her race, color or sex, according to a Feb. 9 ruling in Gunter v. Drexel University.
Notably, “not all the blame lies with [the White male]. Drexel did a poor job of communicating its expectations to [him] and making sure that he adhered to those expectations,” the court observed.
Drexel and the executive’s attorney did not respond to requests for a comment.
The executive served as vice president and chief compliance privacy and internal audit (IA) officer. She was responsible for administrative management of the IA department and the White male because he was head of the IA department.
Her predecessor was also a White male who gave the White male IA head wide berth in running the department. He preferred “staying in [his] lane,” according to court documents. He confined his role to tasks such as reviewing and approving time sheets and budgets and had limited interaction with the IA head and IA employees.
By contrast, the executive took a “more involved approach.” She liked to have one-on-one meetings with the IA head and his staff and participate in his hiring decisions, the record showed.
She believed the IA head discriminated against her due to her race and sex because, unlike with her predecessor, he was resistant to her supervision. As examples, she said he excluded her from a job interview for his second-in-command, asked her to run things by him before making announcements to his staff, and repeatedly objected to other actions, such as when she asked him to help her update the department’s website.
For his part, he believed she was interfering with his authority over IA operations and compromising IA’s independence, according to court records. Drexel’s chief operating officer, who is White, assured him this was not the case and issued him a verbal warning for being disrespectful.
After about three years, the executive complained to HR that his behavior was discriminatory and harassing. An outside attorney investigated and concluded he wasn’t engaging in race- or gender-based discrimination or harassment. The COO then removed him from the executive’s supervision.
The executive later sued Drexel for allegedly violating Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by subjecting her to a race- and sex-based hostile work environment. Following a three-day bench trial, the court granted judgment to Drexel.
“To go from having near-total autonomy over a department to having to report to a supervisor who expected updates, deliverables, and communication would not be easy,” and the IA department head “struggled mightily” with the change, the court pointed out.
However, his responses were not discriminatory microaggressions, but rather “innocent workplace misunderstandings,” the court found.
It explained that to the extent some responses may have been microaggressions, such as when he allegedly complained to the executive about her tone and asked her to stop arguing, she failed to demonstrate the remarks resulted from race- or gender-based animus.
Importantly, the court said the IA head used no slurs and didn’t engage in intimidating conduct, and there was no evidence he physically threatened or humiliated the executive.
While his behavior may have made him difficult to work with and possibly insubordinate, the executive’s claim failed because under the required “severe or pervasive” standard, it would not have created an abusive working environment for a reasonable person in similar circumstances, the court held.
The same plaintiff in Gunter v. Drexel University filed a different lawsuit last year alleging the institution also violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not accommodating her PTSD when it required her to attend a Zoom meeting. That case was eventually dismissed by the judge after the plaintiff missed a deadline.
