Wellborn Freeman v. Oakland Unified School District Carole Quan

I

Appellant Wellborn Freeman (“Freeman”) appeals the district court’s summary judgment of his race-based employment discrimination and retaliation claims. Freeman contends that the district court erred in finding that he had not exhausted his administrative remedies as to the claims raised in his First Amended Complaint and in finding, alternatively, that Freeman failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact in establishing a prima facie case of discrimination. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

Because we hold that Freeman failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as required under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, we do not reach the question of whether he estab lished a prima facie case of discrimination sufficient to avoid summary judgment.

II

Freeman, an African-American male, has taught at the Calvin Simmons Middle School in the Oakland Unified School District (“OUSD”) since 1993. At the beginning of the 1997-1998 school year, OUSD increased the number of periods in a school day at its middle schools from six to eight. The Oakland Education Association (“OEA”), the bargaining representative for “certificated”…