Charleston v. Bd. of Trs. of the Univ. of IL, No. 13-2081 (7th Cir. 2013)

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Charleston began his fourth year at the College of Medicine in 2010, having finished his Obstetrics and Gynecology clinical rotation in June. In September, Charleston’s preceptors submitted a complaint, asking that Charleston be required to repeat the rotation, alleging that Charleston had committed errors in written work (including plagiarism), did not complete quizzes until after the rotation’s conclusion, did not have required signatures in his case log, spent four weeks without a preceptor, and he did not perform well enough to pass. The Student Progress Committee held a meeting; Charleston was not permitted to attend, but submitted a letter. The Committee recommended that Charleston be assigned a mentor in the future. Without notice to Charleston, the complaint and Charleston’s letter were forwarded to the Executive Committee with a new letter from Hall, Associate Dean for Student Affairs for the College of Medicine, alleging that in 2008, Charleston had acted “unprofessionally” while serving as a teaching assistant. Charleston had no opportunity to address Hall’s allegation, which, he claims, was false. The Executive Committee decided that Charleston should be dismissed. Internal appeals failed. His suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, claiming procedural due process, substantive due process, and equal protection violations, was dismissed for failure to plead sufficient facts to establish a protected property interest in his continued education, nor to demonstrate that the university singled him out for unfavorable treatment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed.

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In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 13 2081 GERALD CHARLESTON, Plaintiff Appellant, v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO, et al., Defendants Appellees. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:12 cv 09463 Suzanne B. Conlon, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED NOVEMBER 6, 2013 DECIDED DECEMBER 20, 2013 ____________________ Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and TINDER, Circuit Judges. FLAUM, Circuit Judge. Gerald Charleston, a former medi cal student, brought this § 1983 action after the University of Illinois College of Medicine dismissed him for unprofession al conduct. Charleston advances procedural due process, substantive due process, and equal protection claims against the university, its administrators, and his clinical instructors. 2 No. 13 2081 The district court dismissed his constitutional claims at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage. It found that Charleston did not plead sufficient facts to establish that he had a protected property interest in his continued education at the medical school, nor to demonstrate that the university singled out Charleston for unfavorable treatment. We affirm. I. Background We assume the following facts, taken from Charleston s complaint, to be true. In fall 2010, Charleston was beginning his fourth year at the University of Illinois College of Medi cine at Chicago. He had finished his Obstetrics and Gynecol ogy clinical rotation the previous June. But in September, two of Charleston s preceptors, Dr. Ralph Kehl and Dr. Nan cy Wozniak, submitted a complaint to the College of Medi cine asking that Charleston be required to repeat the rota tion. Kehl and Wozniak s complaint alleged that Charleston had committed errors in his written work (including plagia rism in his patient histories and other reports), that he did not complete his quizzes until one week after the rotation s conclusion, that his case log did not have the required physi cian signatures, that he spent four weeks of the rotation without a preceptor, and that he did not perform well enough to pass. Kehl and Wozniak s complaint was for warded to the College of Medicine at Urbana Champaign Student Progress and Promotions Committee (which we will call the Student Progress Committee ), which held a meet ing in October to discuss it. Charleston was not permitted to attend the Student Progress Committee meeting. He was, however, permitted to submit a letter regarding the precep tors allegations. Upon review of the complaint and Charles ton s letter, the Student Progress Committee recommended No. 13 2081 3 that Charleston be assigned a mentor to ensure that he did not make similar mistakes in his future clinical rotations. At that point, Charleston states, the matter was resolved. However, without notice to Charleston, Kehl and Wozni ak s complaint and Charleston s letter were forwarded to another decision making body, the College of Medicine at Urbana Champaign Executive Committee (we ll call it the Executive Committee ). Accompanying the complaint was a new letter from James Hall, the Associate Dean for Student Affairs for the College of Medicine. Hall alleged that back in 2008, Charleston had acted unprofessionally while serving as a teaching assistant in the School of Molecular and Cellu lar Biology. Charleston never had an opportunity to address Hall s allegation. He maintains that it was false. On October 27, the Executive Committee disregarded the Student Pro gress Committee s earlier recommendation and instead de cided that Charleston should be dismissed from medical school entirely. Charleston appealed the Executive Commit tee s decision (it is not clear to whom), but the dismissal was upheld. He then appealed to the College Committee on Stu dent Promotions, which also voted to dismiss him. Charles ton appealed once more (again, not clear to whom), but to no avail. Charleston s dismissal was made final in January 2011. Charleston filed a § 1983 action in federal district court against the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, University of Illinois at Chicago Chancellor Paula Allen Meares, Associate Dean Hall, Dr. Kehl, Dr. Wozniak, and other unknown defendants. He claimed that his dismissal violated his Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection rights. He also brought state law breach of con tract and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. 4 No. 13 2081 Charleston asked for money damages and an injunction re quiring the defendants to cease all unlawful and unconsti tutional acts that they currently engage in. The defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Charleston opposed the motion, and asked in the al ternative for leave to amend his complaint. The district court granted the motion and dismissed all of Charleston s federal claims with prejudice;1 the court declined to exercise sup plemental jurisdiction over the state law claims. It did not address Charleston s request to amend his complaint. Charleston appeals. II. Discussion We review the district court s Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal de novo. To state a claim for relief, a complaint must provide more than abstract recitations of the elements of a cause of action or conclusory legal statements. Brooks v. Ross, 578 F.3d 574, 581 (7th Cir. 2009). Instead, a plausible claim must include factual content sufficient to allow the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). We can draw no such inferences from the facts in cluded in Charleston s complaint. 1 The district court ruled that Charleston s federal claims for money damages against the board and the university officials in their official capacities were barred by state sovereign immunity. It also found, as an alternate ground for its decision on his substantive due process claim, that qualified immunity barred Charleston s suit on that claim against the university officials in their individual capacities. (Charleston had not asked for an injunction as a remedy for that particular claim.) As we ul timately dismiss each of Charleston s claims on the pleadings, we do not reach the district court s immunity determinations. No. 13 2081 5 A. Due process claims First, Charleston alleges a procedural due process claim based on the process by which the medical school dismissed him. There are two steps to any procedural due process analysis. First, the court must identify the protected property or liberty interest at stake. Second, it must determine what process is due under the circumstances. Omosegbon v. Wells, 335 F.3d 668, 674 (7th Cir. 2003). The district court found that Charleston s claim failed at the first step. We agree. Charleston insists that he has a protected property inter est in his continued education at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. However, our circuit has rejected the proposition that an individual has a stand alone property interest in an education at a state university, including a graduate education. See Bissessur v. Ind. Univ. Bd. of Trs., 581 F.3d 599, 601 (7th Cir. 2009); Williams v. Wendler, 530 F.3d 584, 589 (7th Cir. 2008).2 It cannot be the case, we have rea soned, that any student who is suspended from college has suffered a deprivation of constitutional property, in part 2 Charleston argues that the Supreme Court s decision in Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), recognized a student s protected interest in his or her public education. But he misreads Goss. The Supreme Court found that the Ohio high school students in that case plainly had legitimate claims of entitlement to a public education only because an Ohio state statute promised its young residents that education. Id. at 573 (citing the Ohio code, which required local authorities to provide a free education to all residents between five and twenty one). Having chosen to extend the right to an education to [high school students] generally, Ohio could not then deprive students of that right without due process. Id. at 574. Here, Charleston s complaint does not point to an Illinois statute that promises him an education at a state medical school. Thus, Goss is inap posite. 6 No. 13 2081 because this would imply that a student who flunked out would have a right to a trial type hearing on whether his tests and papers were graded correctly and a student who was not admitted would have a right to a hearing on why he was not admitted. Williams, 530 F.3d at 589. But see Gorman v. Univ. of R.I., 837 F.2d 7, 12 (1st Cir. 1988) (recognizing a general interest in pursuing an education, including a university education); Flaim v. Med. Coll. of Ohio, 418 F.3d 629, 633 (6th Cir. 2005) (affirming that the Due Process Clause is implicated by university disciplinary decisions). Instead of accepting a stand alone interest, we ask whether the student has shown that he has a legally protected entitlement to his continued education at the university. Bis sessur, 581 F.3d at 601 02; Williams, 530 F.3d at 589 90. Charleston could establish that he has this legitimate enti tlement by pleading the existence of an express or implied contract with the medical school. See Bissessur, 581 F.3d at 601. For instance, Charleston could point to an agreement between himself and the school that he would be dismissed only for good cause. Id. But as we held in Bissessur, it is not enough for a student to merely state that such an implied contract existed. Id. at 603. Instead, the student s complaint must be specific about the source of this implied contract, the exact promises the university made to the student, and the promises the student made in return. See id. at 603 04. Charleston maintains that he met this standard. Having reviewed his complaint closely, we disagree. All that his complaint alleges is that Charleston s dismissal was in viola tion of the university s Student Disciplinary Policy and University Statutes. Charleston does not describe the spe cific promises that the university made to him through its No. 13 2081 7 disciplinary policy, nor does he identify these University Statutes and their contents. Rather, Charleston seems to be claiming that the school promised him the procedures set out in the university s disci plinary policy. See Complaint, ¶ 33 ( Defendant failed to comply with its own policies and due process protections set forth in its Student Disciplinary Policy by forwarding a complaint of academic dishonesty, i.e., plagiarism to the [Student Progress Committee] without intermediate review of a Student Discipline Subcommittee. ); Complaint, ¶ 34 ( Defendant failed to comply with its own policies and due process protections set forth in its Student Disciplinary Poli cy by failing to allow Plaintiff a hearing, to be present and defend himself from the allegations against him, to confront the witnesses against him or to address any of the evidence presented against him. ). We have rejected similar claims of an interest in contractually guaranteed university process many times, see, e.g., Park v. Indiana University School of Den tistry, 692 F.3d 828, 832 (7th Cir. 2012), but we will be clear once more: a plaintiff does not have a federal constitutional right to state mandated process. See Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 250 51 (1983) ( Process is not an end in it self. ¦ The State may choose to require procedures ¦ but in making that choice the State does not create an independent substantive right. ); Osteen v. Henley, 13 F.3d 221, 225 (7th Cir. 1993) ( As we tirelessly but unavailingly remind counsel in this court, a violation of state law (for purposes of this case the student judicial code may be treated as a state law) is not a denial of due process, even if the state law confers a procedural right. ). Like other student plaintiffs before him, all that Charleston alleges is that the medical school con ferred on him certain procedural rights. It may have been 8 No. 13 2081 unfair for the university not to follow its own procedures in Charleston s case, but it was not unconstitutional. That does not conclude the matter, though. In his reply brief, Charleston introduces a new account of where his im plied contract with the university came from: the decision by the first committee that reviewed the complaints against him that Charleston remain in the medical school and only re ceive a mentor. His new theory is that when the Student Progress Committee issued this sanction, and Charleston accepted it, an agreement formed between the medical school and Charleston that he would not be dismissed. When the medical school nonetheless moved forward with the preceptors complaints and the new allegation from As sociate Dean Hall, Charleston says, the university breached their original agreement. Needless to say, this theory of his implied contract does not come across on the face of his complaint; nor did he advance it below. But waiv er aside, the complaint s allegations (and Charleston s brief ing on appeal) repeatedly describe the Student Progress Committee s decision as a recommendation only. A rec ommendation can hardly be the basis for a binding contract between parties. We therefore find that Charleston failed to identify a property interest at stake. As such, there is no need for us to proceed to the second step of the procedural due process analysis. For similar reasons, we may dispose of Charleston s sub stantive due process claim. Unless a governmental practice encroaches on a fundamental right, substantive due process requires only that the practice be rationally related to a legit imate government interest, or alternatively phrased, that the No. 13 2081 9 practice be neither arbitrary nor irrational. Lee v. City of Chi., 330 F.3d 456, 467 (7th Cir. 2003). But this rational basis anal ysis presupposes that the individual has a property interest that the state can deprive him of. See Bissessur, 581 F.3d at 603 (dismissing the student s procedural and substantive due process claims when the student failed to plead the existence of an implied contract, as the student s constitutional claims are derivative of the rights he alleges were promised to him ). Nor has Charleston pled a substantive due process claim based on a fundamental right. See Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720 (1997) (holding that the Due Process Clause provides heightened protection against government inter ference with certain fundamental rights and liberty inter ests ). Charleston claims that he has a fundamental right to all benefits and privileges of a public higher education. 3 He has no such thing. For one, the Supreme Court has dis claimed the existence of a fundamental right to an education generally, see San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodri guez, 411 U.S. 1, 35 37 (1973); and accordingly, our circuit has disclaimed the existence of a fundamental right to a graduate education specifically, see Galdikas v. Fagan, 342 F.3d 684, 688 89 (7th Cir. 2003), abrogated on other grounds by Spiegla v. Hull, 371 F.3d 928 (7th Cir. 2004). Charleston offers no reason to reconsider either our interpretation of San An tonio or our own precedent. Nor can he claim a fundamental right to pursue the profession of his choosing. See Park, 692 F.3d at 832 (no right to follow a particular career). Thus, we 3 Actually, the substantive due process portion of Charleston s complaint states only that he has a clearly established right to this education, but his brief on appeal indicates that he meant fundamental. 10 No. 13 2081 affirm the dismissal of Charleston s substantive due process claim as well. B. Equal protection class of one claim We come now to Charleston s third constitutional claim: the university s violation of his rights under the Equal Pro tection Clause. Charleston does not assert that the university dismissed him based on his membership in a protected group; instead, he advances an equal protection class of one claim. His complaint alleges that the actions of De fendants were the result of personal animus against the Plaintiff, and said actions and denials were taken without any rational basis. Our circuit has not settled on a standard for class of one claims that is, claims that a state official denied an in dividual the equal protection of the laws simply by singling the individual out for special treatment. See Del Marcelle v. Brown Cnty. Corp., 680 F.3d 887 (7th Cir. 2012) (en banc). We need not return to that debate in this case, however, because Charleston cannot satisfy the even least demanding standard that could apply. See Park, 692 F.3d at 833 (applying the two standards derived from the lead and dissenting opinions in Del Marcelle). The Del Marcelle dissenters would require a showing that the plaintiff was the victim of intentional dis crimination ¦ at the hands of a state actor, and that the state actor lacked a rational basis for so singling out the plaintiff. Del Marcelle, 680 F.3d at 913 (Wood, J., dissenting); see also Vill. of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000) No. 13 2081 11 (per curiam).4 Charleston has not properly pled either of these elements. One way to allege intentional discrimination is to show that the state treated similarly situated individuals more fa vorably. Park, 692 F.3d at 833; see also Olech, 528 U.S. at 564. That seemed to be Charleston s chosen method (we use the past tense because this too will change, see below). His com plaint alleges that he was retaliated against, harassed, dis ciplined against, intimidated, and dismissed from the medi cal school, all ¦ differently than those similarly situated medical students subjected to the [Student Progress Com mittee] review process. But saying the magic words is not enough: Charleston must offer further factual enhance ment. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. And his complaint tells us noth ing about these similarly situated medical students. On appeal, Charleston offers a Dr. Li who he claims al so failed to turn in the required quizzes for their OB/GYN 4 We call the Del Marcelle dissenting opinion s standard the least de manding because it does not require the plaintiff to plead facts establish ing the state actor s illegitimate motive or subjective ill will toward the plaintiff. Compare Del Marcelle, 680 F.3d at 889 (Posner, J., lead opinion) (requiring the plaintiff to show that he was the victim of discrimination intentionally visited on him by state actors who knew or should have known that they had no justification, based on their public duties, for singling him out for unfavorable treatment (emphasis omitted)); Hilton v. City of Wheeling, 209 F.3d 1005, 1008 (7th Cir. 2000). If Charleston were required to plead an illegitimate motive, however, he has not done so. His complaint contains only a naked assertion that the university offi cials actions were the result of personal animus toward him he of fers nothing, other than the mere fact of Hall s writing the letter and the university s reacting to it, to establish that the officials harbored some personal hostility toward him. 12 No. 13 2081 rotation on time, but who nonetheless escaped sanction. Of course, Charleston needed to mention this Dr. Li in his actu al complaint. But it would not have made a difference if he had, because the accusations against Charleston did not sole ly concern his quizzes. Charleston was also accused of com mitting plagiarism in his patient paperwork, failing to obtain physician signatures for his case log, spending four weeks of the rotation without a preceptor, and not performing well enough in the rotation to pass. Moreover, he was accused of acting unprofessionally as a teaching assistant. See Park, 692 F.3d at 833 (finding no reason to suppose that other dental students were comparable to the plaintiff where the plain tiff was accused of significantly more academic and profes sional misconduct). As was the case in Park, the difference in Charleston s and Dr. Li s alleged culpability defeats a plau sible inference that the school intentionally discriminated against the former. It also defeats an inference that the school s disparate treatment of the two students was irra tional. Once again, however, Charleston has proposed a new theory of the defendants liability in his reply brief. Aban doning Dr. Li and the similarly situated students angle, he now maintains that he can plead his class of one claim by alleging that, because the Student Progress Committee had already addressed Dr. Kehl and Dr. Wozniak s complaint about Charleston s performance during the rotation, the Ex ecutive Committee s subsequent dismissal of Charleston lacked a rational basis. Charleston has waived this argument by failing to embrace it in his opposition to the motion to dismiss or in his initial brief. But even if we overlooked this, his new theory still does not state a viable equal protection claim. Assuming that the Student Progress Committee s de No. 13 2081 13 cision conclusively settled the university s response to the preceptors allegations and again, Charleston s consistent use of the term recommendation to describe the commit tee s decision suggests that we should assume no such thing we still have Associate Dean Hall s allegation that Charleston acted unprofessionally as a teaching assistant. The fact that the disciplinary committees responded more harshly upon receiving this new complaint does not show that the administrators reacted irrationally. True, Charleston maintains that Hall s allegation was false (an assertion that we must credit at this stage), but he does not plead that the administrators knew that it was false and nonetheless dis missed him on that basis. Charleston s allegations amount to a claim that the university had poor reasons for dismissing him but poor is not the same as irrational. Rather, [i]t is entirely rational ¦ to permit state actors to make individual ized decisions when the very nature of their job is to take a wide variety of considerations into account. Del Marcelle, 680 F.3d at 913 (Wood, J., dissenting). Thus, we affirm the dismissal of Charleston s equal pro tection claim. C. Denial of leave to amend the complaint Finally, Charleston argues that the district court should have granted him leave to amend his complaint. Charleston requested leave to amend in his opposition to the defend ants 12(b)(6) motion; the district court did not address his request in its order. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 provides that leave to amend should be freely given when justice so requires. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). However, district courts have broad 14 No. 13 2081 discretion to deny leave to amend where the amendment would be futile. Arreola v. Godinez, 546 F.3d 788, 796 (7th Cir. 2008). We will only reverse a denial if the court abused this discretion. Stanard v. Nygren, 658 F.3d 792, 797 (7th Cir. 2011). Preferably, the district court would have addressed its reasons for not granting leave to amend on the record. Re gardless, in making his request, Charleston offered no sug gestions at all about how he would cure the complaint s de ficiencies. Under these circumstances, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Charleston a second chance. See Indep. Trust Corp. v. Stewart Info. Servs. Corp., 665 F.3d 930, 943 44 (7th Cir. 2012) (finding no abuse of discre tion where the plaintiff did not offer any meaningful indi cation of how it would plead differently in its motion to amend). If there were any doubt on this score, Charleston has eliminated it on appeal. In explaining (in his reply brief) how he would amend his allegations if given the chance, Charles ton has offered that he would plead the complaint more succinctly to show that he was dismissed on the basis of the letter from Associate Dean Hall, that Hall s allegation was both vague and false, that Charleston never had the oppor tunity to address the letter s allegations or confront Hall, that Charleston had already been sanctioned by the Student Progress Committee, that Charleston s acceptance of those sanctions had concluded the matter, and that Charleston s dismissal had no rational basis. Nearly all of that infor mation was already in his complaint, however. And none of it sustains his constitutional claims. If Charleston only pro No. 13 2081 15 poses to rehash his original allegations, we find no abuse of discretion by the district court. III. Conclusion We AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

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