UWM Student Ass'n v. Lovell

266 F. Supp. 3d 1121
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedJune 21, 2017
DocketCase No. 15-CV-1-JPS
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 266 F. Supp. 3d 1121 (UWM Student Ass'n v. Lovell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
UWM Student Ass'n v. Lovell, 266 F. Supp. 3d 1121 (E.D. Wis. 2017).

Opinion

ORDER

J.P. Stadtmueller, U.S. District Judge

In this action, Plaintiffs, who are or were students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (“UWM”), 'assert numerous causes of action relating at their core to an alleged conspiracy by UWM administrators to denigrate the rights and powers of the student government. Defendants have moved to dismiss the complaint, • and for the reasons stated below, their motion will be granted.

Before proceeding to the analysis of Defendants’ motion; to -dismiss,. the. Court notes that the instant motion was filed on December 21, 2015, and was fully briefed as of February 23,2016, not counting other supplemental filings Defendants .and Plaintiffs have made throughout the pendency of the motion. As of April 17, 2017, the date this, matter was reassigned to this branch of the Court, the motion had not been decided. Such delay is inexplicable and thus unwarranted. It works to the detriment of the Court, the parties, and the instructions of Congress in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 1 that the courts of the United States must endeavor to secure the “just, speedy, and inexpensive determination” of every action. Fed. R. Civ, P. 1. The Court now makes good on that obligation by issuing this .long-overdue ruling.

1. BACKGROUND

The following facts are drawn from the allegations in the Third Amended Complaint. Because of, the prodigious length of that document, and because the Court’s disposition of the matter does not turn on its minutiae, the Court will give a high-level summary of the allegations and legal claims.

All Plaintiffs were, at the time of the relevant events, students at UWM. At UWM, there previously existed a student government body known as the Student Association (“SA”), which was organized pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 36.09(5).1 The [1126]*1126events of this case arise primarily from a break in that body in 2013, wherein Plaintiffs’ group, UWM Student Association (“PSA”), and another group, Student Association at UWM (“DSA”), claimed to represent the- continuation of the original SA. Defendants -are mostly UWM employees, including the chancellor, vice chancellor, records custodians, members of the Board of Regents, and others, who allegedly worked to undermine the PSA and empower their preferred group, the DSA.

The third amended complaint sets forth seven causes of action, each’ relating to separate episodes in' what Plaintiffs see as an overarching conspiracy to deprive them of their right to organize as students. First, Plaintiff Daniel Laughland (“Laugh-land”) won the 2012 election for SA president. During the campaign Laughland made statements critical of the UWM administration. After his victory, UWM vice chancellor, Defendant Dr. Michael Lali-berte (“Laliberte”) told Laughland he would not be allowed to serve as president. Laughland, in apprehension of Lalibérte’s power to deny him payment for the position and in the belief that Laliberte had the support of chancellor Dr. Michael Lo-vell (“Lovell”), resigned from the position. Laughland raises a claim of retaliation for his exercise of free speech, in violation of the First Amendment, and deprivation of due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

A similar episode undergirds Plaintiffs’ second cause of action. Nathan Uibel (“Ui-bel”) was elected SA president in April 2013. Plaintiff Vince Rolbiecki (“Rol-biecki”) was to serve as his vice president, and Plaintiffs Mohammad Siddique (“Sid-dique”) and Taylor Scott (“Scott”) had “binding agreements” with Uibel providing that they would be appointed to paid executive positions in SA. All three made statements critical of the administration during the campaign. On May 3, 2013, Lovell issued a letter indicating that he would not recognize the results of the 2013 SA elections. Laliberte-supported Lovell’s plan by organizing an “outside review” of the elections, which turned out to be' negative, in order to provide pretext to question the elections. Others participated in Lovell’s plan to reject the 2013 SA elections as well. An interim “Board of Trustees” of the DSA (the “Board of Trustees”) was formed tó exercise the powers of the prior SA. .Like Laughland in 2012, here these three Plaintiffs claim that they were denied the benefits of their positions in the SA in retaliation for their speech and without due process.

The third cause of action appears to be a continuation of the second. In June 2013, Siddique applied for a position on the Board of Trustees that purported to act in the SA’s stead. His application was denied by Defendant David Stockton (“Stockton”), Student Government Relations Coordinator and Director of the Student Association Professional Staff Office of UWM, in retaliation for his speech in favor of expanding student rights. Scott would have applied to a Board position, too, but after Siddique was rejected, he thought it would be futile to apply. Both applicants were allegedly “among the most qualified” based on their prior SA service. Additionally, almost a year later a UWM official sent an email to student union staff disparaging the “old SA,” which Plaintiffs say was directed at them specifically. Siddique and Scott assert that these actions were contrary to their due process and free speech rights.

In the fourth cause of action, Plaintiffs turn to Plaintiff Gonzalo Couto-Lain (“Couto-Lain”), who was elected chair of the Board of Trustees in June 2013. Stockton apparently obstructed Couto-Lain’s duties by refusing to provide information he was duty-bound to provide,- such as [1127]*1127former SA governing documents. This appears to have been done in retaliation for Couto-Lain’s suggestion that the Board of Trustees should have independent counsel and that the student government should advocate for students in conflicts with the administration or faculty. In September 2013, Stockton, under threat of withholding payment for Board positions and with the support of Lovell and Laliberte, coerced the other Board members to call for Couto-Lain’s resignation. Couto-Lain resigned, and complains that he suffered retaliation for his speech and deprivation of due process.

The fifth cause of action concerns allegations- that UWM officials wrongfully investigated and sanctioned students, including Scott and Siddique, for fabricated instances of nonacademic misconduct. These trumped-up charges were allegedly made in response to the students’ critiques of administration policy. It appears that some or all of these misconduct charges were related to Scott and Siddique’s efforts to run the PSA as their own alternative to the SA, in defiance of the DSA’s takeover of that role. In particular, Siddique was sanctioned for representing that he was a part of the PSA and that the PSA was the legitimate successor to the SA. He was sanctioned by being forced to issue a statement repudiating this belief, a sanction that was upheld on appeal to the chancellor and then to the UW Board of Regents. Scott was threatened with similar sanctions in 2014 unless he declined to re-enroll as a student. Scott and Siddique contend that the disciplinary proceedings and sanctions ultimately imposed were undertaken in retaliation for their speech and did not comport with due process as provided by either the Fourteenth Amendment or the Wisconsin administrative code.

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Related

UWM Student Association v. Michael Lovell
888 F.3d 854 (Seventh Circuit, 2018)
Stevenson v. City of Chicago
N.D. Illinois, 2018

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Bluebook (online)
266 F. Supp. 3d 1121, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/uwm-student-assn-v-lovell-wied-2017.