Brown

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

Kassandra Brown, )

)

Plaintiff, )

)

)

v. ) No. 25 C 9283

)

)

City of Chicago School )

District #299 et al., )

)

Defendants. )

Memorandum Opinion and Order

A former teacher at Curtis Elementary School in Chicago,

plaintiff Kassandra Brown has sued her employer, City of Chicago

School District #299 (“CPS”), the employer of a contractor at her

school, Aramark Management Services, LP (“Aramark”), and a

contractor at the school, John Doe #1 (“Doe”). Brown alleges that

she was harassed by other employees and contractors at the school

and seeks relief under Title VII, the Illinois Human Rights Act,

the Illinois Civil Rights Act, and Illinois common law. Before me

is CPS’s partial motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of

Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). I deny that motion.

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I.

The following facts are taken from Brown’s complaint. For

present purposes, I accept the allegations therein as true.

Brown became a teacher at Curtis Elementary School (“Curtis”)

in 2019. In March 2021, a security guard at Curtis named Dwayne

Haynes (“Haynes”) started sexually harassing Brown, who reported

the harassment to Curtis’s principal soon after it began. In March

2022, Haynes entered Brown’s classroom, “patted her on the

buttocks, kissed her on the forehead, and asked her out on a date.”

ECF 1 at 5. Brown made another report to the principal following

this incident. She did not receive any response to her reports

from CPS.

In August 2022, Brown reached out to the CPS legal department

about the reports but received no follow-up. As a result of the

harassment and CPS’s “failure to investigate or act...false

allegations and rumors [began circulating] among staff members,

suggesting inappropriate behavior” on Brown’s part. Id. These

rumors harmed her reputation at Curtis.

In September 2022, Haynes allegedly grabbed a school nurse,

at which point he was suspended pending an investigation. In May

2023, Brown received a letter from CPS reporting that its

investigation into her complaints had revealed no wrongdoing on

Haynes’s part. In June 2023, Haynes showed up at a carnival event

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at Curtis, and although Brown alerted the principal to his

presence, nothing was done to remove him.

In early March 2024, Aramark employee Doe came into Brown’s

classroom. He petitioned Brown for oral sex, put his arm around

her, and then groped her. Brown ejected him from the room. Brown

once again reported the incident to the principal. CPS did nothing

to remedy the harassment or respond to her report.

After the incident, Doe “began spreading false allegations

and rumors regarding [Brown] stating that she had sexual

relationships with other staff members.” Id. at 6. These rumors

circulated widely at Curtis. As after the incident with Haynes,

CPS did nothing to restrain the rumor-mongering which followed

Brown’s harassment.

On March 21, 2024, some kind of altercation took place between

Doe and a security guard at Curtis named David Underwood. Later

that day, Curtis’s principal suspended Brown “pending

investigation of the incident between [Doe] and the security

guard.”1 Id. at 9. Either that day or shortly afterwards, CPS sent

Brown a letter informing her that she would be suspended while CPS

investigated whether she had “‘engaged in inappropriate conduct on

1 Brown does not describe how one incident relates to the other.

In its answer, CPS intimates that Underwood and Doe were fighting

about Brown for some reason. ECF 21 at 11, 15.

3

Board property.’” Id. at 10. Brown has been on indefinite leave

since March 21, 2024.

II.

A motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 12(b)(6) challenges the “sufficiency of the complaint.”

Berger v. Nat. Collegiate Athletic Assoc., 843 F.3d 285, 290 (7th

Cir. 2016). A complaint must provide “‘a short and plain statement

of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.’”

Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (quoting

Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2)). This standard “demands more than an

unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.”

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). The complaint must

“contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a

claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Id. (quoting

Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). In applying this standard, I accept all

well-pleaded facts as true and draw all reasonable inferences in

favor of the non-moving party. Tobey v. Chibucos, 890 F.3d 634,

639 (7th Cir. 2018).

Statutes of limitations are normally pled as an affirmative

defense, and dismissal of claims as time-barred is appropriate

only where “the allegations of the complaint itself set forth

everything necessary to satisfy the affirmative defense, such as

when a complaint plainly reveals that an action is untimely under

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the governing statute of limitations.” Andonissamy v. Hewlett-

Packard Co., 547 F.3d 841, 847 (7th Cir. 2008) (citations omitted).

In other words, a plaintiff will only plead herself out of court

if she states facts that make it plain that “relief is barred by

the applicable statute of limitations.” Logan v. Wilkins, 644 F.3d

577, 582 (7th Cir. 2011).

III.

Brown names CPS as a defendant in Counts I–IV and VII,

alleging that CPS’s failure to respond to or remedy her harassment

by Haynes and Doe created a hostile work environment and that CPS

put her on an indefinite suspension in March 2024 as retaliation

for her reports of sexual harassment. She frames her hostile work

environment claims in Count I under Title VII of the 1964 Civil

Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and in Count III under the

Illinois Human Rights Act (“IHRA”), 775 Ill. Comp. Stat. § 5/1-

101 et seq. Brown frames her retaliation claims under the same

statutes in Counts II and IV, respectively. And then, in Count

VII, Brown frames a related discrimination claim under the Illinois

Civil Rights Act (“ICRA”), 740 Ill. Comp. Stat. § 23/5 et seq.

CPS asserts that all of the alleged harassment prior to

December 2023 is time-barred and argues that whatever parts of

Counts I–IV rest on that behavior must be dismissed. As to Count

VII, CPS contends that at least in the field of employment

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discrimination, the IHRA pre-empts the ICRA and, for that reason,

Count VII must be dismissed.

A. Time Limits

Under both Title VII and the IHRA, a plaintiff must file a

charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”)

or the Illinois Department of Human Rights (“IDHR”) within 300

days of an employer’s violation of those statutes. 42 U.S.C. §

2000e-5(e)(1); 775 Ill. Comp. Stat. § 5/7A. In National R.R.

Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, the Supreme Court considered when an

“unlawful employment practice” occurs for the purpose of the filing

window. 536 U.S. 101, 108–122 (2002). The Court rejected the view

that any “practice” constituting a discrete discriminatory action—

failure to promote, retaliatory firing, etc.—could be ongoing. Id.

at 111–13. Rather, the Court found, each of those actions takes

place “on the day that it ‘happen[s].’” Id. at 110. As such,

barring equitable relief, a plaintiff must file her charge with

the EEOC or a state agency within 300 days of the relevant adverse

employment action. Id. at 113. Recovery for any discrete actions

taken more than 300 days before the filing date are then time-

barred. 2 Id.

2 The Court left some wiggle room by pointing out that equitable

doctrines, such as tolling or estoppel, could in rare cases work

to allow plaintiffs to recover for actions taking place beyond

the 300-day window. Morgan, 536 U.S. at 113–14.

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In that same case, the Court noted that Title VII also counts

the creation of a hostile work environment as an “unlawful

employment practice,” and that, unlike other unlawful practices,

the creation of a hostile work environment “cannot be said to occur

on any particular day.” Id. at 115. Rather, that practice “occurs

over a series of days or perhaps years,” as the result of many

different acts. Id. And the Court found that as long as one of the

employer’s acts creating the environment takes place within the

300-day window, a plaintiff will be able to bring suit as to all

acts making up the hostility, even if they took place years before.

Id. at 115–19.

Brown cross-filed charges with the EEOC and the IDHR on

October 4, 2024, making the 300-day cutoff December 9, 2023. CPS

argues that recovery for any alleged conduct before that date,

including everything related to Brown’s harassment by Haynes in

2021–2022, is barred, and that I must dismiss Counts I–IV insofar

as they relate to that conduct. CPS further contends that Brown

has failed to plead facts making out the kind of continuing

violation which would allow her to recover for the conduct

predating the 300-day cutoff. Brown responds that continuing

violations have nothing to do with it. Instead, she has asserted

retaliation claims in Counts II and IV that are based on her

suspension, which took place within the 300-day window. And in

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Counts I and III, she has pled a hostile environment which spanned

the entire period from 2021 to 2024, including at least one act

within the 300-day window.

It is unclear on exactly what grounds CPS moves for dismissal

or partial dismissal of Counts II and IV other than that, “in

formulating the Title VII and IHRA claims, [Brown] relies, in

part,” on the allegations dating back to 2021 and 2022. ECF 23 at

4. But in both counts, the adverse employment action that Brown

cites is her 2024 suspension. ECF 1 at 15, 19. Per Morgan, because

CPS suspended Brown on March 21, 2024, that adverse employment

action “happened” on March 21, 2024. 536 U.S. at 110. It is

immaterial that some of the protected activity (her reports of

harassment) that Brown engaged in took place in 2021 and 2022—it

is when CPS allegedly retaliated which is at issue, and that took

place well within the 300-day window.

As to Counts I and III, CPS’s argument is also off base. CPS

insists that at these counts, Brown has failed to make out a

“continuing violation” which would allow her to recover for the

harassment she experienced in 2021 and 2022. The continuing

violation doctrine “allows courts to consider conduct that would

ordinarily be time barred as long as the untimely incidents

represent an ongoing unlawful employment practice.” Id. at 107.

(citations omitted).

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The problem is that Brown nowhere argues that she was subject

to a continuing violation of Title VII or the IHRA.3 Instead, she

clearly pleads at Counts I and III that her coworkers’ harassment

and CPS’s failure to respond to or remedy it created “a hostile

work environment.” ECF 1 at 12, 16 (language identical at each

page). And the Morgan Court held that, as long as one act

constituting a hostile work environment falls within the 300-day

window, a plaintiff can recover for entirety of the environment,

even if the other acts constituting it took place long outside of

the window. 536 U.S. at 118–19. But even after Brown responded to

CPS’s motion clarifying that she was alleging a hostile work

environment—ECF 28 at 2–3—CPS replied that her claim was time

barred “because [Brown] did not properly plead a ‘continuing

violation.’” ECF 32 at 3 (citing the pre-Morgan case Garrison v.

Burke, 165 F.3d 565, 569 (7th Cir. 1999)). CPS does nothing to

convince me that Brown has failed to state a claim at Counts I and

III because it never addresses the theories that she puts forth in

those counts.

Now, it is true that a plaintiff has to make out some

continuity of events even in the hostile environment context. If

3 She likely avoids making an argument under the continuing

violation doctrine because Morgan largely eliminated it. Id. at

113–14.

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Brown wishes to recover for a hostile environment which existed in

2021 by citing actions CPS took in 2024, she has to show that the

hostile environment she experienced in 2021 was more-or-less the

same one that she was still experiencing in 2024. See Milligan-

Grimstad v. Stanley, 877 F.3d 705, 712–13 (7th Cir. 2017) (to

connect allegations within and without the statute of limitations,

the court “must find that the series of allegations describe

continuous conduct rather than isolated incidents.”). Where, for

example, periods of hostility are broken up by periods of amity,

they are not continuous. E.g. Mochu v. Advocate Aurora Health,

Inc., 2023 WL 4930280 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 2, 2023) (finding

discontinuity where plaintiff enjoyed years of a hospitable work

environment between periods of a hostile work environment).

CPS gestures at this issue when it argues that Haynes’s

harassment was too distant to constitute a continuing violation

with Doe’s harassment. But CPS misses the mark because, while the

abuse from Haynes and Doe was spread over time, it is CPS’s

response to the treatment Brown suffered at the hands of other

employees that is at issue. Isaacs v. Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc.,

485 F.3d 383, 386 (7th Cir. 2007) (“[T]he entity responsible for

complying with Title VII is the employer...employers are

responsible for their own conduct (or omissions)—which is to say,

for how they respond (or fail to respond) after receiving notice

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that an employee may be suffering from disparate treatment at co-

workers’ hands.”). Brown has alleged that CPS consistently failed

to respond to her reports of harassment, address her concerns about

her vulnerability to further harassment, or remediate the rumor-

filled environment which her harassers created in the wake of

their abuse. And I cannot find that Brown has not plausibly pled

that CPS subjected her to a hostile environment from 2021 to 2024.

Because at least one of CPS’s actions making up the hostile

environment (its failure to respond to or remediate Doe’s

harassment in March 2024) took place within the 300-day window,

the claims at Counts I and III are not time-barred.

B. The IHRA’s Preemption of the ICRA

At Count VII, Brown alleges substantially the same

discrimination as at Counts I–IV, but this time under the ICRA,

and rephrased to mirror the language of that act at 740 Ill. Comp.

Stat. § 23/5. ECF 1 at 24–30. CPS contends that Count VII should

be dismissed because the IHRA has pre-empted the field of

government employment discrimination in Illinois and that the ICRA

thus does not support an independent cause of action.

There is room for argument on this point. The IHRA provides

that “no court of this state shall have jurisdiction over the

subject of an alleged civil rights violation other than as set

forth in this Act” except “as provided by law.” 775 Ill. Comp.

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Stat. 5/8-111(D). It is settled that that language has pre-empted

common law claims based on civil rights violations. E.g. Nischan

v. Stratosphere Quality, LLC, 865 F.3d 922, 934 (7th Cir. 2017).

Whether it pre-empts statutory claims, including government

employment discrimination claims under the ICRA, is less clear,

“and the little case law existing is wildly inconsistent.” Kainz

v. Illinois Dept. of Corrections, 2022 WL 22970784, at *1, *6 (C.D.

Ill. May 25, 2022).

Some cases find that there is no preemption, citing the ICRA’s

broad language: “Because the ICRA specifically provides that

parties may file claims under that act...the IHRA does not preclude

[such] claim[s].”E.g., Smith v. Bd. of Ed. for Waukegan Pub. Sch.

Dist. # 60, 2021 WL 4459529, at *1, *7 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 29, 2021).

Others have found that the ICRA only really exists to reinstate

the right to disparate-impact litigation in the wake of its

limitation by the U.S. Supreme Court. 4 E.g., Illinois Native

American Bar Ass’n v. Univ. of Illinois by Its Bd. of Trustees,

856 N.E.2d 460, 466–67 (Ill. App. Ct. 2006) (“[The ICRA] merely

created a new venue in which plaintiffs could pursue in the State

4 For background, see “Rescinding Portions of Department of Justice

Title VI Regulations to Conform More Closely with the Statutory

Text and to Implement Executive Order 15281,” DOJ Final Rule, AG

Order No. 6509-2025 (Dec. 10, 2025),

https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-22448.

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courts discrimination actions that had been available to them in

the federal courts.”). In Kainz, a court in this circuit concluded

after a thorough and wide-ranging textual and statutory

construction analysis that the IHRA preempts the ICRA, at least in

the employment context, under the Illinois principle that the more

specific statute pre-empts the more general one. 2022 WL 22970784

at *5–*9.

CPS relies on Kainz and other less thorough cases finding

pre-emption. Brown responds with cases which do not find pre-

emption and argues, contra Kainz, that Count VII does not make out

a run-of-the-mill instance of employment discrimination; rather,

it asserts “a multi-year pattern of discriminatory treatment”

composed of “systemic practices” which are “methods of

administration” that the ICRA is meant to regulate, versus the

“employment discrimination” which falls under the IHRA. ECF 28 at

9. It is unclear how framing a hostile environment claim as dealing

with an employer’s methods of administration (a hostile

environment claim always will, Isaacs, 485 F.3d at 386) makes it

any different from the run-of-the mill kind, but I will take the

route of the court in Tapia v. City of Chicago, No 19 C 1257, 2019

WL 3716915, at *1, *7 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 7, 2019) (declining to decide

the preemption question where it was sparsely briefed). Neither

party has explored the issue in real detail and, given that Count

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VII concerns the same facts as Counts I-IV, it is unlikely that

allowing the ICRA claim to proceed will affect discovery. The

parties may brief the issue further at summary judgement, if the

case proceeds to that stage.°

Iv.

For the foregoing reasons, I deny CPS’s motion to dismiss.

ENTER ORDER:

«Blaine E. Bucklo

United States District Judge

Dated: January 16, 2026

° If they do so, they would be wise to engage with the analysis in

Kainz, the question of whether Count VII’s framing as concerning

“methods of administration” rather than employment makes any

difference to preemption, and the contention in TIlil. Native

American Bar Ass’n that the ICRA was meant only to resurrect

disparate-impact litigation.

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