Judge Denise Cote
Harris, a Union Theological Seminary professor, was evicted from his Knox Hall apartment and reassigned to another in Hastings Hall, after Knox Hall was leased out to improve the seminary’s finances. Tenure was revoked and Harris was fired in 2006 based on allegations of sub-standard academic performance and refusal to cooperate with the resolution of the seminary’s financial problems. He was later evicted from Hastings Hall. Summary judgment was issued against Harris in a 2005 action alleging civil rights violations. His instant lawsuit under 42 USC §§1981, 1982, and 1985, duplicated issues already litigated and decided in 2005. Harris was thus precluded from raising those issues again. The surviving allegations did not state a claim for a federal law violation. Nor did Harris allege facts implying racial animus by defendants to support his conclusory statement that they “intentionally protect[ed] and enforce[d] the contracts of white Seminary employees while failing to protect and enforce the similar contracts of a black Seminary employee.”
