Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, RETALIATION—N.D. Tex.: Professor, locked out of system after approval of adjunct status, advances claim, (Jul 9, 2026)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

She had resigned from her full-time position, citing a hostile work environment, but was nonetheless told she could continue to teach as an adjunct.

Denying Dallas College’s motion for summary judgement against a former professor’s retaliation claim, a federal district court in Texas determined that the professor had adduced sufficient evidence on the question of pretext to allow her claim to move forward. She did not learn of the college’s proffered reason for locking her out of the system until four years after the fact, during deposition, and alleged that another full-time professor who had resigned but was allowed to continue as an adjunct did not meet the same fate. However, the court did grant the motion for summary judgment against her breach of contract claim, finding that the contract did not contain express language stating that the college intended to be contractually bound by its policies (Day v. Dallas College, No. 3:24-CV-1259-N (N.D. Tex. July 6, 2026)).

Authorized faculty representative. The professor in this case taught biology at Dallas College from August 2015 to August 2021. During this time, she represented other faculty members as their authorized faculty representative in grievances they filed against the college. She also helped establish a chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) at the college in May 2020.

Resignation. According to the professor, the college retaliated against her for her efforts to protect faculty interests by serving as AAUP president, allegedly stating that her attempts to create a faculty senate “would lead to reprisals against the entire faculty.” She asserted that the “coordinated attacks” created such a hostile work environment that she was forced to resign from her position on August 2, 2021, effective August 15, 2021.

Adjunct request. After resigning, the professor requested to teach three of her previously scheduled online classes for the Fall 2021 semester as an adjunct professor. The Chair of the Biology Department approved and confirmed that the professor’s status in the system would be changed to adjunct professor. However, on August 17, the professor discovered that she no longer had access to any of her adjunct online classes without explanation.

Grievance threat. On August 27, the professor emailed the college’s chief HR officer stating she would file a grievance for retaliation due to her representation of other faculty members in their grievances. In response, the HR officer denied that the professor’s removal from adjunct classes was retaliatory and that HR had not received any paperwork regarding the professor’s request to teach as an adjunct.

Subsequently, the professor filed this lawsuit asserting claims for breach of contract and retaliation. The college moved for summary judgment against both claims.

Breach of contract. First, the court addressed the breach of contract claim. According to the professor, the college breached her employment contract by violating its own internal policies regarding discrimination and harassment. She further alleged that the college breached her employment contract and its own policy by retaliating against her for the grievances and by interfering with her expressive activities. The court was unmoved.

As a general rule, employee handbooks and policy manuals do not create implied contracts between employers and employees, explained the court. Further, employment in Texas is presumed to be at-will. For an employer to modify an employee’s at-will status, it must unequivocally indicate a definite intent to be bound not to terminate an employee except under specified circumstances. The professor failed to show the college intended to change her at-will status.

To support her claim, the professor pointed to language in her employment contract stating that “the relationship between the Instructor and the District is governed by state and federal laws and regulations and approved policies, regulations, and procedures of the District…during the term of this Contract.” However, the court found that this quoted language did not contain an express statement that the college intended to be contractually bound by its policies.

The employment contract language was more properly read as a statement that the professor, as an instructor, was bound to the college’s policies as a condition of employment, said the court. This conclusion was further supported by the sentence that follows: “By signing this Contract, Instructor agrees to abide by and comply with District Policies and all applicable local, state and federal law and regulations.” Thus, the court granted the college’s motion for summary judgment against this claim.

Retaliation. Turning to the professor’s claim for retaliation, the court applied the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework. It found she had established her prima facie case for retaliation. She engaged in protected activity by filing grievances on her own behalf and representing other faculty members in grievances they had filed against the college. She had suffered an adverse employment action by the college’s failure to assign her adjunct courses, effectively terminating her employment. And a plausible causal link existed between the protected activity and the adverse employment action.

Legitimate reason. Shifting the burden to the college to point to a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its decision, it claimed that the professor was inadvertently “dropped out” of its new centralized scheduling system because of the timing of her resignation and her subsequent request to teach in the Fall semester. Her resignation became effective about one week before the semester began, “when everything was very chaotic” due to complications from the new scheduling system. The court found this explanation sufficient to satisfy the college’s burden.

Pretext. Having established a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its decision, the burden fell to the professor to show this explanation was pretextual. The court found she satisfied this burden.

The college’s proffered reason for the adverse employment action was an administrative error. However, this explanation was not initially offered to the professor, observed the court. She only learned of this explanation during the deposition of the chief HR officer four years later.

In addition, the professor alleged that another full-time biology professor at the college had resigned and requested to continue teaching his assigned courses as an adjunct two months after she had made her request. This professor’s request was honored for the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 semesters. Further, this professor ran into the same administrative error that purportedly caused her to be removed from the system, but biology department administrators and an HR employee corrected the error in time for him to begin teaching that Fall. The college failed to adequately explain this discrepancy, said the court.

Moreover, in October 2021 the professor again reached out seeking available adjunct courses after administrators had resolved the issues in the scheduling system. The college still failed to assign adjunct classes to the professor or explain why she was no longer allowed to teach. The college’s failure to explain these differing outcomes between the two professors raised a fact issue regarding pretext, and the motion for summary judgment against this claim was denied.

The case is No. 3:24-CV-1259-N.

Judge: Godbey, D.

Attorneys: Frank W. Hill (Hill Gilstrap) for Brianna Day. Kristin Snyder Higgins (Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart) for Dallas College.

Companies: Dallas College

Cases: Retaliation ContractClaims CoverageLiability Discharge PublicEmployees StateLawClaims TexasNews