Nora E. Robles v. Green Bay Area Public School District

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted April 14, 2015*
Decided April 14, 2015
Before
RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge
JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
No. 14‐2091
NORA E. ROBLES,
Plaintiff‐Appellant,
v.
GREEN BAY AREA PUBLIC
SCHOOL DISTRICT,
Defendant‐Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
No. 12‐C‐1172
William C. Griesbach,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Nora Robles, an uncertified teacher, was hired by the Green Bay Area Public School
District to teach a bilingual kindergarten class at Howe Elementary School for one
academic year (2009 to 2010). This was Robles’s first year of teaching, and after just six
months the school district changed her position to that of substitute teacher, citing poor
performance. Robles was fired one month later. She sued under Title VII of the Civil
* After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral
argument is unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record.
See FED. R. A PP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 14‐2091 Page 2
Rights Act of 1964, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e‐2(a), claiming that the school district had
discriminated against her because she is Hispanic. The district court granted summary
judgment for the school district, and Robles appeals. We affirm the judgment.
The school district moved for summary judgment on the ground that the only
conclusion reasonably to be drawn from the uncontested evidence is that Robles first
was relegated to a substitute‐teaching position and then fired not because she is
Hispanic but because she had failed to meet the school district’s legitimate performance
expectations. As evidence, the school district submitted (1) declarations from the
principal of Howe Elementary, the district’s assistant superintendent of human
resources, the associate director of the district’s English Language Learner Program, and
a principal from a neighboring school who had been consulted about Robles’s job
performance; (2) notes taken by these declarants while meeting with Robles and
observing her in the classroom; (3) excerpts from Robles’s deposition; and
(4) employment agreements signed by Robles.
The school district’s evidence describes problems with Robles from the get‐go.
The school principal states in her declaration that she had received complaints early in
the year from teachers and staff that Robles was violating school policy by leaving the
building without signing out, that she was late to parent‐teacher conferences, that she
was bringing her children to the school during working hours, and that she was walking
around barefoot in the halls. Over the following months, the principal along with the
associate director of the language program and the principal of the neighboring school
observed Robles’s classroom performance at various times and expressed concerns to
her during meetings. All three administrators agreed that Robles’s performance was
unsatisfactory. The associate director’s declaration, for example, describes Robles’s
classroom as “chaotic.” And the declarations of both principals state that Robles
appeared to have no lesson plans. In the opinion of the second principal—who had nine
years’ experience teaching bilingual classes and regularly provided support to bilingual
educators in the school district—Robles’s “performance was still lacking” five months
into the school year, as she had “poor classroom management and poor lesson planning
and instruction.”
The assistant superintendent of human resources explains in his declaration that
Robles, because of her poor performance, was reassigned to the position of substitute
teacher, though retaining the same salary. If on a particular day no assignment as a
substitute teacher was available, Robles was to report to the school district’s offices to be

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No. 14‐2091 Page 3
given other tasks. The week after her reassignment, Robles violated school district policy
by missing work two days in a row without reporting her absences. When Robles
returned to work, the assistant superintendent says, they met to discuss the absences,
which Robles attributed to illness. The assistant superintendent did not believe her (a
colleague had told him that Robles was visiting her union’s lawyer). After this, the
declaration continues, Robles left the meeting during a break and never returned. Two
weeks later, the assistant superintendent notified Robles in writing that she was being
fired for, among other reasons, “failing to report an absence,” “lying during an
employment investigation,” and leaving the meeting during working hours without
permission.
Robles conceded that she lacks direct evidence of discrimination but maintained
that her evidence establishes a prima facie case of employment discrimination under the
indirect method of proof recognized in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792
(1973). But the only evidence submitted by Robles—who was represented by a lawyer
throughout the proceedings in district court—is her own declaration. In that declaration
Robles disagrees with the school district’s contention that her performance as a teacher
was subpar. Teachers who are not Hispanic, she insists, were scrutinized less and, unlike
her, permitted to roam the school barefoot and bring their children to work. Robles did
not dispute, however, the principal’s sworn statement that she was unaware of similar
transgressions by other teachers. Nor did Robles contend that the school district had
relegated her to substitute teaching or fired her because she had walked around barefoot
or because she had brought her kids to school. Based on her declaration alone, Robles
insisted that the employment expectations set by the school district were not legitimate.
She also argued that the declarations submitted by the school district should be
discounted as “self‐serving.”
In granting summary judgment for the defendant, the district judge reasoned that
Robles had not made a prima facie case of discrimination because she lacks evidence that
she was satisfying the school district’s legitimate job expectations. The judge explained
that maintaining order in the classroom and executing lesson plans are legitimate
expectations and noted that “there was unanimity among the observers that Robles was
unable or unwilling” to improve her performance to meet these expectations. Moreover,
the judge continued, the observers—particularly the second principal, who is
Hispanic—could not “be expected to have any kind of anti‐Hispanic animus.”

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No. 14‐2091 Page 4
On appeal Robles (now pro se) repeats that, unlike her, other teachers who are not
Hispanic also brought their children to work and walked barefoot around the school.
These teachers were not disciplined, which in Robles’s view shows that the school
district discriminated against her because she is Hispanic. This contention is a red
herring. Robles was not removed from the classroom or fired for walking barefoot or for
bringing her children to work. Rather, the school district presented undisputed evidence
that she was consigned to substitute teaching because her performance—her lesson
planning and classroom management—was not in line with the school district’s
legitimate expectations.
Robles’s only reply to the evidence of her performance issues is that she “worked
to the best of her abilities to comply with the . . . school district’s expectations.” We grant
that she did, but Robles’s opinion that her best efforts should have satisfied her
employer does not get her past summary judgment. See Sklyarsky v. Means‐Knaus
Partners, L.P., 777 F.3d 892, 897 (7th Cir. 2015); Sublett v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 463 F.3d
731, 740 (7th Cir. 2006). And Robles offered no evidence from which a jury could infer
that the school district demanded that Hispanic teachers perform better in the classroom
than other teachers. See Montgomery v. American Airlines, Inc., 626 F.3d 382, 394 (7th Cir.
2010); Peele v. Country Mut. Ins. Co., 288 F.3d 319, 331 (7th Cir. 2002).
In closing, we comment briefly on the district judge’s statement that the Hispanic
principal of the neighboring school could not “be expected to have any kind of
anti‐Hispanic animus.” One might read this as a suggestion that it would be impossible
for the principal to discriminate against Robles because they are both Hispanic—a
suggestion that is incorrect. See Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 78
(1998); Williams v. Wendler, 530 F.3d 584, 587 (7th Cir. 2008); Bibby v. Philadelphia Coca Cola
Bottling Co., 260 F.3d 257, 261 – 62 (3d Cir. 2001). We do not, however, read the judge’s
statement to be implying the impossibility of discrimination among members of the
same group. And in any event, the judge was correct to conclude that there is no
evidence that the school district’s adverse employment actions against Robles were
motivated by her being Hispanic.
AFFIRMED.

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