Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RACE—N.D. Ind.: Purdue defeats race bias claims over executive’s discipline, (Sep 21, 2026)

By George Basharis, J.D.

A former diversity officer failed to connect his race or discrimination complaints to escalating sanctions imposed after Purdue found that he violated its anti-harassment policy.

An Indiana federal district court granted Purdue University summary judgment on the race discrimination and retaliation claims alleged by its former chief diversity officer, finding that the employees he identified were not valid comparators and that Purdue offered consistent, nondiscriminatory reasons for his discipline. His retaliation claim separately failed because the officials responsible for the challenged actions either acted before his protected activity or lacked knowledge of it when they made their decisions. His claim under Section 1981, a federal civil rights statute barring race discrimination in contracts, also failed because claims against state actors must proceed through Section 1983, which he had not invoked (Hammonds v. Purdue University Board of Trustees, No. 1:25-CV-41-HAB (N.D. Ind. Sept. 17, 2026)).

Complaint prompts discipline. The former chief diversity officer worked at Purdue Fort Wayne for nearly five years in one of six cabinet-level positions. He reported directly to the chancellor, supervised more than a dozen employees during his tenure, and was the campus’s only African-American senior executive.

In December 2023, his executive assistant filed a formal complaint accusing him of harassment and discrimination, including denying her request to work remotely one day a week and delaying approval of time-off requests. Because the diversity officer reported directly to the chancellor, the chancellor delegated authority over the complaint to the director of Purdue’s Office of Institutional Equity.

Investigators interviewed 12 witnesses and reviewed emails, documents, and materials submitted by the diversity officer. After the investigation and additional meetings with an advisory panel, the equity director found that he had not violated Purdue’s anti-discrimination policy but had violated its anti-harassment policy. She determined that he revoked the executive assistant’s existing remote-work privilege because he had become frustrated with time she missed through protected FMLA leave and other time off. She also found that he took longer to approve or deny her leave requests than those of other employees he supervised.

The equity director required the diversity officer to complete approved training at his own expense. Both he and the executive assistant appealed, with the assistant seeking stronger sanctions. Purdue’s vice president for ethics and compliance upheld the finding and increased the discipline, requiring 10 hours of training, making the diversity officer ineligible for a merit increase for the upcoming fiscal year, and directing the chancellor to issue a formal reprimand. She cited the seriousness of the misconduct, its effect on the executive assistant’s work environment, and the diversity officer’s leadership position.

Under the resulting reprimand, the university suspended the diversity officer’s university-sponsored executive coaching and imposed a 12-month moratorium on organizational changes within his unit. The chancellor said the moratorium would preserve the status quo while the diversity officer completed his training. He was also concerned that, two days after the appeal decision, the diversity officer proposed a reorganization that would have eliminated the position of an employee who participated in the investigation.

Comparators fall short. The diversity officer argued that Purdue disciplined employees of other races more favorably, but none provided a meaningful comparison. A white faculty member received a two-year unpaid suspension for extensive workplace harassment spanning more than two years. Although the chancellor rejected a recommendation to terminate her, the suspension was substantially more severe than the diversity officer’s sanctions. She also held a different position, engaged in more serious misconduct, and had a different final decision maker.

Two other employees differed in more fundamental ways. A complaint against one did not proceed because the asserted workplace disagreements and unfair treatment did not amount to harassment. A complaint accusing the other of exposing himself was dismissed as untimely under Purdue’s 120-day filing period. Therefore, neither employee faced discipline for an substantiated policy violation comparable to the one involving the diversity officer.

Nondiscriminatory reasons. The absence of valid comparators was not the only weakness in the discrimination claim. Purdue offered nondiscriminatory reasons for each sanction that corresponded to the officials responsible for imposing them. The equity director considered training proportionate to the violation. The vice president considered the initial discipline insufficient given the misconduct and the diversity officer’s leadership position. The chancellor later imposed the organizational moratorium to preserve the status quo and to address concerns over the proposed elimination of a witness’s position.

Nothing in the record showed those explanations to be pretextual. Purdue’s reasons remained consistent, and officials did not undermine them by providing additional explanations at different stages of the disciplinary process. The evidence instead supported Purdue’s stated reasons for its decisions.

The diversity officer’s challenge to the training requirement did not fill that evidentiary gap. He asserted that other employees received cheaper or free training yet could not identify anyone permitted to satisfy a comparable sanction that way. Without such a comparison, the training requirement did not support an inference of race discrimination.

Retaliation link missing. As to the retaliation claim, this faltered on causation. The diversity officer could not show that the officials who increased his sanctions acted because of his discrimination complaints or EEOC charge.

The vice president increased his sanctions nearly a month before he filed the EEOC charge, foreclosing any causal connection between the two. His earlier conversations with university officials about the treatment of African Americans at Purdue Fort Wayne occurred roughly a year before his discipline and several months before the complaint that triggered the investigation. Without additional evidence linking those conversations to the later sanctions, the timing did not support retaliation.

The chancellor’s reprimand required a closer look because he issued it 10 days after the EEOC charge. The record, however, contained no evidence that he knew about the charge when he acted. The chancellor said he learned of it three days after issuing the reprimand, and nothing in the record showed otherwise.

In an effort to establish that knowledge through another administrator, the diversity officer pointed to an individual who helped draft the reprimand and may have known about the charge. Her involvement did not supply the missing causal link. The chancellor reviewed the earlier disciplinary determinations, retained control over the reprimand’s contents, and relied on other sources of information rather than depending on the administrator to make his decision.

Job not affected. The two sanctions added in the reprimand faced a separate obstacle. Suspending the diversity officer’s executive coaching and temporarily restricting organizational changes did not affect his pay, title, status, or core job benefits. He remained chief diversity officer with the same compensation and responsibilities apart from the temporary restriction on reorganizing his department. Consequently, the restrictions did not cause the significant harm required for a materially adverse action under Title VII’s retaliation provision. Without a causal connection between the diversity officer’s protected activity and his discipline, and without a materially adverse action arising from the additional restrictions, the retaliation claim could not survive summary judgment.

The case is No. 1:25-CV-41-HAB.

Judge: Brady, H.

Attorneys: Lauren M. Thompson (Amber K. Boyd Law) for Marteze D. Hammonds. Emily C. Lodge (Barnes & Thornburg) for Purdue University Board of Trustees.

Companies: Purdue University Board of Trustees

Cases: RaceDiscrimination Discrimination PublicEmployees Retaliation IndianaNews