Tyler v. Univ. of Ark. Bd. of Trustees, No. 10-1251

Action for Racial Discrimination

In Tyler v. Univ. of Ark. Bd. of Trustees, No. 10-1251, an action claiming that defendant university did not hire plaintiff for the newly created position of Director of Recruitment for Diversity in retaliation for the charge of race discrimination he had filed against the school back in 2004, the court affirmed summary judgment for defendant where 1) plaintiff put forward no evidence establishing an inference of retaliatory animus through temporal proximity of the two events; and 2) plaintiff could not demonstrate that the University's explanation for its preference was pretextual.

As the court wrote:  "Henry Tyler, an African American assistant dean for diversity at the University of Arkansas, is suing the University and his former supervisor, Dean of the College of Pharmacy Dr. Stephanie Gardner, alleging the school did not hire him for the newly-created position of Director of Recruitment for Diversity in retaliation for the charge of race discrimination he had filed against the school back in 2004."

Related Resources

• Read the Eighth Circuit's Decision in Tyler v. Univ. of Ark. Bd. of Trustees, No. 10-1251