Patrick Delices v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted November 2, 2023*
Decided November 3, 2023
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 23-1594
PATRICK DELICES,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
SYSTEM,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of
Wisconsin.
No. 18-cv-1839-bhl
Brett H. Ludwig,
Judge.
O R D E R
Patrick Delices, a former doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee, appeals the summary judgment rejecting his claims that the University of
Wisconsin System discriminated against him based on his race and national origin,
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 23-1594 Page 2
subjected him to a hostile learning environment, and retaliated against him in violation
of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We affirm.
Near the end of the first year of his doctoral program with the university’s
Africology department, Delices received a departmental fellowship that would provide
him with financial assistance beginning in the following academic term, subject to the
condition that he not take on employment exceeding 10 hours per week. But in the
summer after his second year, Delices was accused through an anonymous complaint of
having a full-time job, in violation of his fellowship’s rules. The department did not take
formal disciplinary action at the time, but it warned Delices that he could be sanctioned
with a written reprimand, a demand to pay restitution, disciplinary probation, or even
expulsion. The complaint also triggered an investigation conducted by the university
that turned out to be inconclusive.
In the third year of the program, Delices was required to pass a preliminary
examination covering his intended dissertation topic. He failed the examination on his
first attempt. After he narrowly passed on the second try, his advisor withdrew,
explaining that Delices had continually rebuffed his professional advice and was not
adequately preparing his dissertation prospectus.
Before the start of Delices’s fourth year, the university declined to renew his
fellowship because he failed to meet two requirements for good standing. First, he had
not demonstrated academic progress (his transcript showed that he mostly enrolled in
undergraduate courses). Second, he did not have departmental support (members of
the department derided his work as being of a “low standard”). Later that year, Delices
told doctoral program coordinators that he had “completed all milestones” to achieve
dissertator status. But Delices’s former advisor (when asked by coordinators) disputed
this characterization, pointing out that Delices had failed to select a new advisor,
establish a dissertation committee, and submit a prospectus for his dissertation defense.
Delices, who describes himself as a black Haitian American, then sued the
university and its faculty members in the Southern District of New York (the state
where he then resided), asserting claims of discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile
educational environment. See Tit. VI, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. The case was later transferred to
the Eastern District of Wisconsin for reasons of venue. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1404, 1391(b).
Three times during the proceedings that ensued, Delices asked the court to
recruit counsel to assist him. His first request—made shortly after he filed his initial

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No. 23-1594 Page 3
complaint—was denied by Judge Pepper, who stated that Delices needed to attach
proof that he tried to retain counsel on his own. Delices soon followed with a second
request attaching such proof. Judge Ludwig, who had since been reassigned the case,
denied this request because Delices, the holder of a master’s degree, was “far from the
most helpless pro se litigant” for whom the court would recruit counsel. Delices made
his third request while responding to the defendants’ motion to dismiss his
constitutional and state law claims; the judge denied this request for the same reason.
The district court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment.1 The
court accepted as undisputed the defendant’s proposed statement of facts because, as
required by the local rules, Delices did not respond to the defendant’s submission or
propose factual findings of his own. See E.D. Wis. Civ. R. 56(b). As for the merits, with
regard to Delices’s discrimination claims under Title VI (prohibiting discrimination in
connection with programs that receive federal assistance), the court used the burden-
shifting framework under McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), and
concluded that he had not submitted sufficient evidence of two elements of a prima
facie case. The court found insufficient his evidence that he was meeting the legitimate
expectations of a graduate student or that the university treated similarly situated
individuals outside his protected class more favorably; regardless, no reasonable
factfinder could conclude that he suffered an adverse action on account of his race or
national origin. As for Delices’s hostile-environment claim, the court determined that no
rational jury could find that his educational environment at the university was
objectively offensive or his educational requirements unreasonable. Finally, regarding
Delices’s retaliation claim, the court concluded that he introduced no evidence to show
that he engaged in protected activity, with whom he engaged, or what actions he
regarded as retaliatory.
On appeal, Delices first argues that the district court wrongly admitted the
defendant’s statement of facts without ensuring that he be warned of the consequences
of not complying with the local rules. But this argument misstates the record. The
defendant, in its motion for summary judgment, included the relevant local and federal
rules that explained the procedures for Delices to respond and the consequences for not
doing so. See Timms v. Frank, 953 F.2d 281, 285 (7th Cir. 1992). Even pro se litigants like
Delices are not exempt from procedural rules or the consequences of failing to comply
1 The district court, by prior order, dismissed all other parties from this suit
except for the University of Wisconsin System.

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No. 23-1594 Page 4
with them. See E.D. Wis. Civ. R. 56(b)(4); see also McCurry v. Kenco Logistics Services, LLC,
942 F.3d 783, 787 n.2 (7th Cir. 2019).
Delices also argues that Judge Ludwig overlooked the complexity of his case
when denying his two requests for counsel. But the judge acted well within his
discretion to deny the requests, determining based on Delices’ higher-education
credentials and the difficulty of the case that he was competent to litigate himself. See
Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647, 653–54 (7th Cir. 2007) (en banc).
Finally, to the extent Delices contests the merits of the district court’s order, he
does not adequately develop any challenge to the ruling. See F ED. R. A PP . P. 28(a)(8)(A)
(requiring that an appellant’s brief “contain appellant's contentions and the reasons for
them, with citations to the authorities and parts of the record on which the appellant
relies); see also Ashman v. Barrows, 438 F.3d 781, 784 (7th Cir. 2006); Anderson v. Hardman,
241 F.3d 544, 545 (7th Cir. 2001).
AFFIRMED

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