Novak v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

____________________

No. 14-2663

PATRICK NOVAK,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF SOUTHERN

ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Illinois.

No. 3:12-cv-00007-JPG-PMF — J. Phil Gilbert, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED DECEMBER 9, 2014 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 10, 2015

____________________

Before POSNER, RIPPLE, and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. Patrick Novak brought this action

against Southern Illinois University (“the University”) and

three of its professors, alleging that he had been terminated

from the University’s doctoral program in Curriculum and

Instruction on the basis of his post-traumatic stress disorder,

in violation of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title

II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The district court

2 No. 14-2663

granted the University’s motion for summary judgment.1 It

determined that Mr. Novak had not established a prima fa-

cie case of disability discrimination and that, in any event, he

had not presented sufficient evidence to show that the de-

fendants’ stated reason for terminating him from the pro-

gram was a pretext for discrimination. Mr. Novak filed a

timely appeal. 2 For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we

agree with the district court that Mr. Novak cannot show

that the reason given by the University for his dismissal was

pretextual. On that ground, we affirm the judgment of the

district court.

I

BACKGROUND

A.

Mr. Novak was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress

disorder (“PTSD”) in 2001. That same year, he enrolled as an

undergraduate student at the University. Through its office

of Disability Support Services, the University provided

Mr. Novak with the accommodations that he requested

throughout his undergraduate career.

In 2005, Dr. Lynn Smith recommended Mr. Novak for

admission into the University’s doctoral program in Cur-

riculum and Instruction (“C&I”). The University accepted

Mr. Novak into the program. After an initial period of study,

1The jurisdiction of the district court was premised on 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331

and 1343.

2 Our jurisdiction is premised on 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

No. 14-2663 3

all doctoral students in the C&I program must pass a Prelim-

inary Examination in order to continue and become a candi-

date for a doctoral degree. The Preliminary Examination

consists of three segments, referred to as “Days,” each of

which covers a different aspect of preparation and study.

Days 1 and 2 consist of timed exams, while Day 3 involves

an untimed take-home assignment.

In September 2008, upon the advice of his psychologist,

Mr. Novak requested and received extra time to complete

the Day 1 portion of the exam because of his PTSD. He

passed Day 1.

In summer 2009, Mr. Novak took Day 2 and Day 3.

Dr. Smith and Dr. Marla Mallette, two of the professors serv-

ing on Mr. Novak’s doctoral committee, reviewed his Day 2

and Day 3 exam answers, and gave Mr. Novak failing marks

on both exams. Both professors provided reasons for failing

Mr. Novak on Day 2 and Day 3 based on the content of his

exam answers. Mr. Novak was not terminated from the C&I

doctoral program at that time, despite the department’s rule

that two failures would permit dismissal.

In fall 2009, again upon the recommendation of his psy-

chologist, Mr. Novak requested and received the following

accommodations based on his PTSD: (1) an opportunity to

review his failing exam results, (2) an explanation of why his

responses were insufficient, (3) extra time to complete Day 2,

(4) the opportunity to meet with an instructor to prepare for

retaking the exams, and (5) an opportunity to retake the ex-

ams. With these accommodations, Mr. Novak passed Day 2

on his second attempt.

4 No. 14-2663

In spring 2010, Mr. Novak retook the Day 3 portion of the

exam with the same accommodations he had requested in

the fall of 2009.3 Again, Dr. Smith and Dr. Mallette found his

Day 3 answers insufficient and, accordingly, gave

Mr. Novak failing marks. Both professors again gave reasons

for failing Mr. Novak on Day 3 based on the content of his

answers.

Mr. Novak retook Day 3 for a third time in fall 2010,

again with the same accommodations that he had requested

in the fall of 2009. Dr. Smith and Dr. Mallette again found his

Day 3 answers insufficient and awarded failing marks. This

time, however, the professors did approve part of his sub-

mission—Chapter 1—and only asked him to rewrite the oth-

er part—Chapter 2.

In January 2011, Mr. Novak took Day 3 for a fourth time,

again with the accommodations that he had earlier request-

ed, plus additional written suggestions from Dr. Mallette to

help him prepare. Mr. Novak failed the assignment.

Dr. Smith and Dr. Mallette again cited the content of his ex-

am response in the Chapter 2 rewrite as their reason for fail-

ing him. Dr. Sharon Shrock, another member of Mr. Novak’s

doctoral committee, agreed that Mr. Novak had failed the

assignment, also citing the content of his exam response. No-

tably, Dr. Shrock only reviewed Chapter 2 of Mr. Novak’s

response, and some of her criticisms were that Mr. Novak

had omitted parts that, unbeknownst to her, he actually had

included in Chapter 1 of his response.

3The request for additional time was not applicable because Day 3 was

an untimed take-home exam.

No. 14-2663 5

In their review of Mr. Novak’s various Day 3 submis-

sions, Drs. Smith, Mallette, and Shrock did not all give the

same reasons for failing Mr. Novak. Following his spring

2011 failure, they met privately with each other to discuss

Mr. Novak’s performance and also as a group with

Mr. Novak to review with him their reasons for his failure.

Given Mr. Novak’s repeated failure to pass Day 3, the

C&I Department terminated his participation in the doctoral

program in spring 2011. The Department offered, however,

to convert his doctoral credits into a master’s degree, but

stated that if Mr. Novak accepted this offer, his credits

would no longer be available to apply toward a doctoral de-

gree. Mr. Novak accepted the department’s offer and re-

ceived a master’s degree in May 2011.

B.

Mr. Novak brought this action in the district court on

January 4, 2012, against the University, its College of Educa-

tion, Dr. Smith, Dr. Mallete, Dr. Shrock, Dr. Janet Fuller, and

Dr. Paul Angelis. 4 He alleged that he was terminated from

the C&I doctoral program based on his PTSD, in violation of

section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, and Ti-

tle II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42

U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.

4 The district court dismissed Mr. Novak’s claims against the College of

Education, Dr. Fuller, and Dr. Angelis on October 18, 2012. These deci-

sions are not at issue in this appeal.

6 No. 14-2663

On April 18, 2012, the district court entered a scheduling

and discovery order with a discovery cutoff date of October

15, 2012. In this scheduling order, the court required that

Mr. Novak disclose any expert witnesses on or before Octo-

ber 1, 2012. The order also required that the parties file any

dispositive motions on or before December 15, 2012.

On November 9, 2012, the magistrate judge conducted a

conference about discovery disputes and scheduling matters.

The magistrate judge granted the parties’ joint oral motion to

modify scheduling and discovery. The court’s order stated

that “[a]ll present deadlines and hearings are stricken.” 5 The

order then set specific deadlines for discovery and the filing

of dispositive motions. Notably, the order made no reference

to extending the time for the disclosure of experts.

On May 15, 2013, Mr. Novak again requested that the

district court extend the time for the completion of discov-

ery. His motion made no reference to extending the time for

the disclosure of experts. On June 18, 2013, the magistrate

judge granted Mr. Novak’s request and set new deadlines

for discovery and the filing of dispositive orders. This order

made no reference to extending the time for the disclosure of

experts.

On December 16, 2013, the day that discovery in this case

was to be completed, Mr. Novak’s counsel sent defense

counsel two emails purporting to be disclosures of his expert

witnesses: Dr. Kevin Wise and Dr. Jerry Becker. The emails

attached letters signed by counsel for Mr. Novak, rather than

the proposed experts, and contained bulleted lists of the con-

5 R.24.

No. 14-2663 7

tent of their testimony. Neither Dr. Wise nor Dr. Becker

submitted a signed, written report on December 16, 2013.

On December 27, 2013, the defendants filed their motion

for summary judgment, as well as a motion to exclude

Mr. Novak’s experts, accompanied by a supporting memo-

randum and exhibits. In due course, Mr. Novak filed re-

sponses to the defendants’ motion to exclude and to the de-

fendants’ motion for summary judgment. Attached to his

response to the motion to exclude were affidavits from

Mr. Novak’s expert witnesses. The defendants later filed a

reply in support of their motion to exclude Mr. Novak’s ex-

perts, to which Mr. Novak filed a motion to strike.

On April 15, 2014, the magistrate judge granted the de-

fendants’ motion to exclude Mr. Novak’s experts and denied

Mr. Novak’s motion to strike the defendants’ reply as moot.

Mr. Novak sought review of the magistrate judge’s order,

but the district court adopted the magistrate judge’s order.

The court also granted, in that same order, the defendants’

motion for summary judgment. After the court entered

judgment, Mr. Novak filed a timely appeal.

II

DISCUSSION

A.

Mr. Novak first submits that the district court erred in

granting the University’s motion to exclude his expert wit-

nesses. “We review a trial court’s discovery determinations,

including the decision to exclude expert testimony, under an

8 No. 14-2663

abuse of discretion standard.” Musser v. Gentiva Health Servs.,

356 F.3d 751, 755 (7th Cir. 2004).

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2) requires parties

to timely disclose their expert witnesses in accordance with

any deadlines set by the district court. The rule further re-

quires parties to disclose a “written report,” “prepared and

signed by the witness,” and containing the following:

(i) a complete statement of all opinions

the witness will express and the basis

and reasons for them;

(ii) the facts or data considered by the

witness in forming them;

(iii) any exhibits that will be used to sum-

marize or support them;

(iv) the witness’s qualifications, including

a list of all publications authored in

the previous 10 years;

(v) a list of all other cases in which, dur-

ing the previous 4 years, the witness

testified as an expert at trial or by

deposition; and

(vi) a statement of the compensation to be

paid for the study and testimony in

the case.

No. 14-2663 9

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(B). Failure to comply with the disclo-

sure requirements of Rule 26(a) results in automatic and

mandatory exclusion of the proffered witness “unless the

failure was substantially justified or is harmless.” Fed. R.

Civ. P. 37(c)(1).

Mr. Novak’s December 2013 disclosure of Dr. Wise and

Dr. Becker did not include the information required under

Rule 26(a)(2)(B)(i), (iii), (iv), (v), or (vi). Further, Mr. Novak

disclosed these witnesses more than one year after the

court’s October 1, 2012, deadline for expert witnesses. The

district court determined that these errors were neither sub-

stantially justified nor harmless. The court noted that

Mr. Novak had known about these witnesses because he had

listed them as potential experts in his May 2012 interrogato-

ry responses. The disclosures were, moreover, so late that

defendants had no opportunity to depose Dr. Wise or

Dr. Becker, to challenge the admission of their testimony

under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S.

579 (1993), or to identify opposing experts.

Mr. Novak now submits that his December 2013 disclo-

sure was timely because, after initially setting the deadline

for expert witness disclosures on October 1, 2012, the court

later entered an order on November 9, 2012, stating that

“[a]ll present deadlines and hearings are stricken.”6

Mr. Novak further contends that any other deficiencies in his

disclosures were harmless because he was in substantial

compliance with Rule 26.

6 Id.

10 No. 14-2663

Both of Mr. Novak’s arguments are without merit. His

timeliness argument takes the district court’s action out of

context. Although the court’s November 9 order stated that

“all” present deadlines were stricken, the remainder of that

order—particularly when read in conjunction with the

court’s earlier April 18, 2012, scheduling order (which the

November 9 order modifies)—makes clear that the court was

not referring to the deadlines set for the disclosure of expert

witnesses. Immediately after this statement, the court’s No-

vember 9 order set new deadlines for the close of discovery

and the filing of dispositive motions. The order made no ref-

erence to extending the time for the disclosure of experts.

The only deadline ever announced by the district court for

the disclosure of expert witnesses was in its order of April

18. That order listed separate dates for the close of discovery

(October 15, 2012) and for the disclosure of expert witnesses

(October 1, 2012). The magistrate judge never addressed the

expert disclosure date—the one at issue here—in his subse-

quent order.

The failure of Mr. Novak’s disclosures to conform sub-

stantially to the requirements of Rule 26 provides an inde-

pendent basis for the district court’s exclusion order.

Mr. Novak does not dispute the existence of these deficien-

cies. Rather, he submits that they were harmless because his

disclosures were in substantial compliance with Rule

26(a)(2). He relies on our decision in Jenkins v. Bartlett, 487

F.3d 482 (7th Cir. 2007). In Jenkins, we determined that a dis-

trict court had not abused its discretion by allowing for the

admission of a party’s experts, even though that party’s Rule

26(a) disclosure was prepared and signed by the attorney

rather than the proffered experts. There, the absence of the

witnesses’ signatures was the “main defect” in the defend-

No. 14-2663 11

ants’ disclosure. Id. at 488. Because both witnesses later

submitted affidavits adopting the contents of the attorney’s

letter, we determined that the disclosure substantially com-

plied with Rule 26(a) and that any shortcomings in the de-

fendants’ disclosure were harmless.

Like the defendants in Jenkins, Mr. Novak’s expert wit-

nesses have submitted affidavits that appear to remedy most

of the substantive deficiencies in Mr. Novak’s initial disclo-

sure. 7 Mr. Novak attached these affidavits as exhibits to his

response to the defendants’ motion to exclude. Nevertheless,

this remedial step does not in any way cure Mr. Novak’s ear-

lier noncompliance with Rule 26. Unlike the situation in Jen-

kins, where the main deficiency was the absence of signa-

tures, here Mr. Novak’s initial disclosure failed to comply

with almost every requirement of Rule 26(a)(2)(B). Although

Jenkins indicates that a court may excuse minor errors in a

Rule 26(a) disclosure, the case hardly suggests that a district

court can, or should, allow parties to make late attempts at

remedying a disclosure which is in almost complete non-

compliance with Rule 26(a). 8 Jenkins cannot be read as con-

doning disclosures that fall short of Rule 26(a) in significant

ways. It was merely a determination, under our highly def-

7 Notably, these affidavits still failed to provide a statement regarding

the witnesses’ compensation, as required by Federal Rule of Civil Proce-

dure 26(a)(2)(B)(vi).

8 Unlike the present case, moreover, the defendants’ disclosure in Jenkins

v. Bartlett, 487 F.3d 482 (7th Cir. 2007), although lacking witness signa-

tures, was still timely submitted in accordance with the district court’s

disclosure deadline. See id. at 486.

12 No. 14-2663

erential standard of review, that the district court had acted

within its discretion.

Mr. Novak’s untimeliness and lack of compliance with

the substantive provisions of Rule 26 would have placed the

University in a very difficult position in preparing its motion

for summary judgment. The University had the right to de-

pose the experts and to seek out rebuttal experts, a task that

would have been impossible within the time constraints set

by the district court. That court therefore acted well within

its discretion in refusing to accept Mr. Novak’s untimely and

incomplete submission. 9

9 Mr. Novak also contends that the University’s reply in support of its

motion to exclude his expert witnesses violated Southern District of Illi-

nois Rule 7.1(c). That rule provides, in part, that “[r]eply briefs are not

favored and should be filed only in exceptional circumstances” and that

the “party filing the reply brief shall state the exceptional circumstanc-

es.” Local Rule 7.1(c) (emphasis omitted). Mr. Novak contends that the

defendants’ reply brief should have been stricken because it failed to ad-

dress the issues that the University said it would address when they

sought leave to file a reply.

Mr. Novak’s argument need not detain us long. “[D]istrict courts are

entitled to considerable deference in the interpretation and application of

their local rules.” Hunt v. DaVita, Inc., 680 F.3d 775, 780 n.2 (7th Cir.

2012). “[U]nless the district court enforces (or relaxes) the rules unequal-

ly as between the parties, the decision to overlook any transgression of

the local rules is left to the district court’s discretion.” Modrowski v. Pigat-

to, 712 F.3d 1166, 1169 (7th Cir. 2013) (alterations omitted) (internal quo-

tation marks omitted). Here, Mr. Novak does not allege that the district

court applied Local Rule 7.1(c) in an uneven manner. Accordingly, the

district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Mr. Novak’s motion

to strike.

No. 14-2663 13

B.

We turn to Mr. Novak’s contention that the district court

erred in granting summary judgment to the defendants. A

district court’s grant of summary judgment is reviewed de

novo. Pyles v. Fahim, 771 F.3d 403, 408 (7th Cir. 2014). In or-

der to make out a prima facie case of discrimination under

both the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, a plaintiff must

show: (1) that he suffers from a disability as defined in the

statutes, (2) that he is qualified to participate in the program

in question, and (3) that he was either excluded from partic-

ipating in or denied the benefit of that program based on his

disability. Jackson v. City of Chicago, 414 F.3d 806, 810 (7th Cir.

2005). The Rehabilitation Act further requires that a plaintiff

show that the program in which he was involved received

federal financial assistance. Id. at 810 n.2; see also 29 U.S.C.

§ 794(a).

An ADA or Rehabilitation Act plaintiff may prove his

case through either direct or indirect proof of discrimination.

Rothman v. Emory Univ., 123 F.3d 446, 451 (7th Cir. 1997).

Under the direct method, a plaintiff must present either di-

rect evidence of discrimination or circumstantial evidence

that creates a “convincing mosaic” of discrimination. Winsley

v. Cook Cnty., 563 F.3d 598, 604 (7th Cir. 2009) (internal quo-

tation marks omitted). Under the indirect method, a plaintiff

must establish a prima facie case of discrimination by pre-

senting evidence that (1) he is disabled, (2) he is qualified to

participate in the program, (3) he suffered an adverse action,

and (4) nondisabled students were treated more favorably.

Bunn v. Khoury Enters., Inc., 753 F.3d 676, 685 (7th Cir. 2014).

If the plaintiff can establish a prima facie case, the burden

then shifts to the defendant to articulate a legitimate, non-

14 No. 14-2663

discriminatory reason for any alleged adverse action toward

the plaintiff. Id. Upon articulating such a reason, the defend-

ant “is entitled to summary judgment unless the claimant

can present sufficient evidence that the [defendants’] prof-

fered reason is a pretext for discrimination.” Steinhauer v.

DeGolier, 359 F.3d 481, 484 (7th Cir. 2004).

As the district court noted, the parties dispute only two

of the three elements of the cause of action: whether

Mr. Novak was qualified for the doctoral program and

whether his exclusion from the program was on the basis of

his disability. There is no dispute over whether Mr. Novak

suffers from a disability. The district court determined that

Mr. Novak’s claim failed under both the direct and indirect

methods of proof. Because Mr. Novak contends that he

should prevail under both methods, we will analyze his

claims under both methodologies.

1.

Under the direct method, Mr. Novak attempts to prove

discrimination by attacking two of the reasons offered by his

professors for failing his various Day 3 submissions. First, he

attacks Dr. Smith’s critique that his Day 3 submissions failed

to adequately identify “gaps in the literature” by attempting

to show that Dr. Smith had not consistently applied this cri-

terion in grading other students. Second, he points out that

Dr. Shrock had made no effort to read his prior Day 3 sub-

missions, and, consequently, had faulted him based on a cri-

terion that he had satisfied in a prior submission. He further

notes that neither Dr. Mallette nor Dr. Smith had told

Dr. Shrock to read his prior Day 3 submissions.

No. 14-2663 15

This evidence is insufficient to support a finding that

Mr. Novak was discriminated against because of his PTSD.

At the very most, this evidence, if believed by a trier of fact,

would show that there were lapses in the professors’ as-

sessment methodology that might have resulted in unfair-

ness to Mr. Novak. Any inference of discriminatory intent

would be unreasonable in light of the undisputed evidence

that the University repeatedly had accommodated his PTSD,

and, as the district court put it, had “bent over backward[s]

to give him opportunities and assistance beyond those re-

quired by department policy” in an effort to help him pass

his Preliminary Examination. 10

Mr. Novak has failed to create a convincing mosaic of ev-

idence from which a reasonable jury could find that the de-

fendants had discriminated against him because of his disa-

bility. Accordingly, his claim fails under the direct method.

2.

Although we have grave doubts as to whether

Mr. Novak can make out a prima facie case of disability dis-

crimination under the indirect method, we will pretermit

any definitive discussion of this point because we think it is

very clear that he has not established that the reason given

by the University and its faculty for his termination from the

doctoral program can be characterized as pretextual. See

Steinhauer, 359 F.3d at 484. We do note, however, that the

district court, in determining that there was insufficient evi-

10 R.67 at 13.

16 No. 14-2663

dence that Mr. Novak was a qualified individual, relied

heavily on the Supreme Court’s decision in Regents of the

University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214 (1985), a sub-

stantive due process case in which the Supreme Court stated

that judges may not override a “genuinely academic deci-

sion” “unless it is such a substantial departure from accept-

ed academic norms as to demonstrate that the person or

committee responsible did not actually exercise professional

judgment.” Id. at 225. Courts of appeals have been careful

not to import this formulation of the deference owed to aca-

demic decisions when analyzing allegations under the dis-

crimination statutes. Although such a formulation rests com-

fortably in the context of substantive due process analysis,

the Supreme Court has noted specifically that such a formu-

lation applies only to “legitimate academic decision[s]” and

that academic decisions that are discriminatory are not legit-

imate. Univ. of Pennsylvania v. EEOC, 493 U.S. 182, 199 (1990)

(emphasis in original); see also id. at 190. Our own case law

has long acknowledged that “Congress did not intend that

institutions of higher learning enjoy immunity from the Na-

tion’s antidiscrimination statutes.” Vanasco v. Nat’l-Louis

Univ., 137 F.3d 962, 968 (7th Cir. 1998); see also Davis v.

Weidner, 596 F.2d 726, 731 (7th Cir. 1979). Indeed, our recent

decision in Blasdel v. Northwestern University, 687 F.3d 813

(7th Cir. 2012), carefully deals with this important distinc-

tion. See id. at 815–17. The distinction between the proper

treatment of academic decisions in the discrimination con-

text versus the substantive due process context has been rec-

ognized as well by our sister circuits and at least one state

jurisdiction. See Gossett v. Oklahoma ex rel. Bd. of Regents for

Langston Univ., 245 F.3d 1172, 1181 (10th Cir. 2001); Wynne v.

Tufts Univ. Sch. of Med., 932 F.2d 19, 25 (1st Cir. 1991) (en

No. 14-2663 17

banc); Palmer Coll. of Chiropractic v. Davenport Civil Rights

Comm’n, 850 N.W.2d 326, 338−39 (Iowa 2014).

Although the Ewing formulation has been determined to

be inappropriate in cases based on the Nation’s discrimina-

tion statutes, we also have recognized, continually, the sig-

nificant costs associated with “heavy-handed” judicial intru-

sion into internal academic decisions. N.R. Doe v. St. Francis

Sch. Dist., 694 F.3d 869, 873 (7th Cir. 2012). In Blasdel, we not-

ed at some length the nature of those costs. See 687 F.3d at

815–16. Some are practical; academic judgments often rest on

necessarily “subjective judgments about academic poten-

tial.” Nat’l-Louis Univ., 137 F.3d at 968; see also Namenwith v.

Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Wisconsin Sys., 769 F.2d 1235,

1243 (7th Cir. 1985). Other considerations are rooted in the

values of the First Amendment. See Blasdel, 687 F.3d at 816

(quoting Lieberman v. Gant, 630 F.2d 60, 67 (2d Cir. 1980)); see

also Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 263 (1957) (Frank-

furter, J., concurring). Academic institutions are in no way

exempt from our discrimination laws. Nor are there separate

and more lenient standards for them. But, when assessing

the evidence in such cases, courts must understand the na-

ture and mission of the institutions and evaluate the evi-

dence accordingly.

We turn now to the matter of pretext. The University and

its faculty give a simple, direct reason why Mr. Novak’s par-

ticipation in its doctoral program was terminated: he had

failed to pass his preliminary examination—a prerequisite

for further participation in the program. To show that this

reason is pretextual, Mr. Novak must demonstrate that this

reason constitutes a mistrutha lie on the part of the de-

fendants. “Pretext means…a phony reason for some action.

18 No. 14-2663

Thus, the question before us is not whether the [Universi-

ty’s] stated reason was inaccurate or unfair, but whether the

[University] honestly believed the reasons it has offered to

explain the discharge.” Collins v. Am. Red Cross, 715 F.3d 994,

1000 (7th Cir. 2013) (citations omitted) (internal quotation

marks omitted). 11

Mr. Novak points to several perceived faults in the facul-

ty’s methodology. None of those alleged faults suggest any-

thing other than an error in the course of a faculty member’s

evaluation of the student’s work. Any lapse hardly supports

the inference that the faculty members were involved in

something other than a bona fide professional enterprise

throughout the course of their assessment. There is no evi-

dence that the faculty members’ grading of Mr. Novak’s Pre-

liminary Examination was anything other than an honest,

professional evaluation of his potential for the particular

program in which he was enrolled. In other words, the evi-

dence of record is insufficient to support a finding that the

professors’ stated reasons for failing Mr. Novak’s various

Day 3 submissions were deliberately false—a mask for a de-

cision based on discriminatory grounds. 12 Indeed, the record

11 See also Widmar v. Sun Chem. Corp., No. 13–2313, slip op. at 12 (7th Cir.

Nov. 19, 2014); Bates v. City of Chicago, 726 F.3d 951, 956 (7th Cir. 2013);

Stockwell v. City of Harvey, 597 F.3d 895, 901–02 (7th Cir. 2010); McGowan

v. Deere & Co., 581 F.3d 575, 581 (7th Cir. 2009); Perez v. Illinois, 488 F.3d

773, 777 (7th Cir. 2007).

12 Mr. Novak does not contend that the Preliminary Examination is an

illegitimate or unnecessary requirement of the C&I doctoral program.

Nor does Mr. Novak dispute that, under C&I departmental policy, stu-

dents are subject to expulsion from the doctoral program after twice fail-

ing any component of the Preliminary Examination.

No. 14-2663 19

here shows that the defendants afforded Mr. Novak many

accommodations to ensure that his disability did not inter-

fere with his having a fair opportunity to meet the Universi-

ty’s standards for this particular program. On this basis, the

district court correctly determined that the University’s mo-

tion for summary judgment should be granted. 13

Conclusion

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

AFFIRMED

13Because we have affirmed on the merits, we need not address the Uni-

versity’s argument that we ought to affirm because Mr. Novak failed to

comply with Rule 30 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.