In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 15‐3528
SUSAN SHOTT,
Plaintiff‐Appellant,
v.
ROBERT S. KATZ,
Defendant‐Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 15 C 4863 — Virginia M. Kendall, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED APRIL 26, 2016 — DECIDED JULY 11, 2016
____________________
Before KANNE, SYKES, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.
HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Susan Shott, a tenured associate
professor of biostatistics at Rush University Medical Center,
brought this lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 alleging that one
of her colleagues, Dr. Robert Katz, retaliated against her for
complaining about anti‐Jewish discrimination in the work‐
place. The district court dismissed her complaint for failure to
state a claim. We affirm.
2 No. 15‐3528
This case arises indirectly from two lawsuits Shott filed
against Rush years ago. She first sued Rush in 1994 claiming
that Rush administrators discriminated against her by refus‐
ing to make reasonable accommodations for her religion (Or‐
thodox Judaism) and disability (rheumatoid arthritis). A jury
rejected Shott’s claim of religious discrimination but awarded
her $60,000 for disability discrimination. See Shott v. Rush‐
Presbyterian‐St. Luke’s Med. Ctr., 338 F.3d 736, 738–39 (7th Cir.
2003). She sued Rush again in 2011. This time she alleged,
among other things, that Rush administrators refused to in‐
crease her salary or promote her to full professor in retaliation
for her earlier lawsuit. The district court granted summary
judgment for Rush, and we affirmed. See Shott v. Rush Univ.
Med. Ctr., No. 15‐3767, 2016 WL 3316618 (7th Cir. June 15,
2016).
While her second lawsuit against Rush was pending, Shott
also sued Katz, whom she had occasionally helped with sta‐
tistical analysis. She alleged that, in retaliation for her ongoing
litigation against Rush, Katz impeded her career advance‐
ment by rebuffing her invitations to collaborate on research
articles. She explained that “[p]ublication of research articles
is very important for the career advancement of Rush Medical
School faculty members” and that “[b]y refusing to publish
research articles with Dr. Shott and refusing to do research
with her, Dr. Katz has caused significant damage to
Dr. Shott’s career.”
Katz was also Shott’s treating rheumatologist. She also ac‐
cused him of retaliating against her by refusing to respond in
timely fashion to her requests for prescription refills. When
Katz did respond, he agreed to refill Shott’s medications but
No. 15‐3528 3
only if she would come in for an examination every six
months, a requirement that she found inappropriate.
The district court dismissed Shott’s complaint for failure
to state a claim. The court explained that Katz’s alleged with‐
holding of medical treatment did not state a claim for retalia‐
tion under § 1981 because Shott had not alleged that Katz’s
medical care affected her employment. The court also con‐
cluded that she failed to allege a sufficient “nexus” between
Katz’s refusal to collaborate and her career advancement at
Rush. The court gave Shott fourteen days to file an amended
complaint, but she chose to appeal instead.
We begin with a jurisdictional matter. Because Shott filed
her notice of appeal four days before her deadline for filing
an amended complaint, Katz has moved to dismiss the appeal
for lack of jurisdiction. But as Katz now concedes, “[w]hen a
judge conditionally dismisses a suit, but gives the plaintiff
time to fix the problem that led to dismissal … , the order be‐
comes an appealable ‘final decision’ once the time for correc‐
tion has expired, whether or not the court enters a final judg‐
ment.” See Davis v. Advocate Health Ctr. Patient Care Express,
523 F.3d 681, 683 (7th Cir. 2008). There has been no activity in
the district court since Shott filed her notice of appeal, so the
district court’s order dismissing her complaint without preju‐
dice became a final decision within the meaning of 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291. See id.; Borrero v. City of Chicago, 456 F.3d 698, 699–700
(7th Cir. 2006). We therefore have jurisdiction over this ap‐
peal.
Section 1981 “protects the right of all persons to make and
enforce contracts regardless of race.” Carter v. Chicago State
Univ., 778 F.3d 651, 657 (7th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation
marks omitted). The Supreme Court has recognized that Jews
4 No. 15‐3528
are among the “identifiable classes of persons” the statute
protects. See Saint Francis Coll. v. Al–Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604,
611–13 (1987); Lubavitch‐Chabad of Ill., Inc. v. Northwestern
Univ., 772 F.3d 443, 446–47 (7th Cir. 2014); Bachman v. St. Mon‐
icaʹs Congregation, 902 F.2d 1259, 1261 (7th Cir. 1990)); cf.
Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 481 U.S. 615, 617–18 (1987)
(explaining that although “Jews today are not thought to be
members of a separate race,” they are nonetheless protected
under 42 U.S.C. § 1982 because at the time of the statute’s
adoption they “were among the peoples then considered to
be distinct races”).
To state a retaliation claim under § 1981 based on events
occurring in the workplace, an employee must show that she
suffered a materially adverse action because she engaged in
protected activity. See Davis v. Time Warner Cable of Se. Wis.,
L.P., 651 F.3d 664, 674 (7th Cir. 2011); Silverman v. Board of Ed‐
ucation, 637 F.3d 729, 740–42 (7th Cir. 2011). “Individual em‐
ployees can be held liable under Section 1981 if they ‘partici‐
pated’ in the retaliatory conduct.” Carter, 778 F.3d at 657,
quoting Smith v. Bray, 681 F.3d 888, 896–97 (7th Cir. 2012); see
also Sklyarsky v. Means‐Knaus Partners, L.P., 777 F.3d 892, 896
(7th Cir. 2015) (recognizing that third‐parties may be liable
under the statute for tortiously interfering with an employee’s
relationship with her employer for racial reasons); Muhammad
v. Oliver, 547 F.3d 874, 878 (7th Cir. 2008) (same).
Shott contends that the district court construed § 1981 too
narrowly by requiring her to allege that Katz’s acts of retalia‐
tion were related to an adverse employment action. As a gen‐
eral matter, we agree with her that the court’s focus on em‐
ployment was unwarranted. The statute forbids any retalia‐
tory actions that are “harmful to the point that they could well
No. 15‐3528 5
dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a
charge of discrimination,” and those retaliatory actions need
not be directly “related to employment or occur in the work‐
place” except that their harm must have been caused by con‐
tract‐ or employment‐related events. Burlington Northern and
Santa Fe R.R. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 57 (2006); see Pantoja v.
American NTN Bearing Mfg. Corp., 495 F.3d 840, 848–49 (7th
Cir. 2007).
That analytic error was harmless, though. A plaintiff can
plead herself out of court by alleging facts that show she has
no legal claim. Atkins v. City of Chicago, 631 F.3d 823, 832 (7th
Cir. 2011). The retaliatory acts Shott alleged cannot plausibly
be considered materially adverse. See Burlington Northern, 548
U.S. at 57. Shott did not, for example, allege that Katz was un‐
der any obligation to work with her or that he discouraged
anyone else from working with her. Even if Katz’s refusal to
collaborate with her was in some way motivated by disap‐
proval of her litigation against Rush, that would not be action‐
able under § 1981. We held in Smith v. Bray, 681 F.3d 888, 898–
900 (7th Cir. 2012), that an individual employee could be lia‐
ble under § 1981 for causing an employer (under a “cat’s
paw” theory) to take retaliatory action against an employee.
We have not gone so far, however, as to suggest that a plain‐
tiff’s fellow employees violate the implied retaliation prohibi‐
tion in § 1981 by not seeking out the plaintiff to collaborate on
professional projects.
Moreover, Katz’s decisions about what research projects
to pursue—and with whom—are protected by the First
Amendment and would not serve as a proper basis for hold‐
ing him liable for violating Shott’s civil rights. See Trejo v. Sho‐
6 No. 15‐3528
ben, 319 F.3d 878, 884 (7th Cir. 2003) (First Amendment pro‐
tects faculty member’s right to participate in “academic de‐
bates, pursuits, and inquiries”); Dow Chemical Co. v. Allen, 672
F.2d 1262, 1275 (7th Cir. 1982) (recognizing that right to aca‐
demic freedom includes right to carry on research without in‐
terference from fellow faculty members); McElearney v. Uni‐
versity of Ill. at Chicago Circle Campus, 612 F.2d 285, 288 (7th
Cir. 1979) (“Academic freedom does not empower a professor
to dictate to the University what research will be done using
the school’s facilities.”); see also Hosty v. Carter, 412 F.3d 731,
736 (7th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (“Let us not forget that academic
freedom includes the authority of the university to manage an
academic community and evaluate teaching and scholarship
free from interference by other units of government, includ‐
ing courts.”).
Nor is it plausible that Katz’s request to examine Shott
every six months as a condition of continuing her prescrip‐
tions amounted to a material adverse action. If she was not
willing to comply with that obviously reasonable condition,
she should have tried to find a new doctor, not filed a federal
civil rights lawsuit against Katz.
AFFIRMED.