Myralyn OA Nartey was a doctoral student at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2009, she entered the doctoral program at the university’s Fielding School of Public Health. When she sought to defend her dissertation in 2014, she was told she had to “throw away” her entire thesis and start over again. When her next attempt was deemed inadequate, she filed a complaint against the Regents of UCLA and three faculty members whom she accused of eleven counts of gender and ethnic stereotyping as well as other claims.

Nartey’s complaint was based on California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, now part of the State’s Civil Code, §51. The 1959 Act prohibits any business in California from discrimination based on “sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship, primary language, or immigration status.”

The plaintiff, who was born in the United States to parents who were born in Africa, alleged in her complaint that the faculty at UCLA subjected her to gender, marital status, and racial discrimination as well as unfair business practices and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They told her that having children would hinder her career, disparaged her husband, and “questioned her ability to speak and write English.” She was told that she was “slow” and lacked the capacity to complete her doctoral program.

Upon receipt of Nartey’s complaint, the UCLA Regents, the university’s governing body, demurred and moved to strike it. They argued that she had failed to exhaust her administrative remedies and, more importantly for this case, that UCLA was not subject to the Unruh Act and could not be held liable for claims that were based on it.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Craig D. Karlan sustained UCLA’s demurrer for all claims related to the Unruh Act. He also told Nartey that all other assertions related to her academic discrimination required her to exhaust the University’s grievance procedures before going to the courts.

Nartey amended her complaint and the Regents again demurred. In 2021, Judge Karlan again sustained all the Regents demurrers because he disagreed with her contention that she had complied with all of UCLA’s grievance procedures. He also reiterated that UCLA was “not a business establishment” subject to the Unruh Act. Plaintiff then appealed to Division Four of California’s Second District Court of Appeal where a unanimous three-justice panel entered a judgment in favor of the UCLA Regents.

In an unpublished opinion authored by Justice Helen Zukin on February 13, the justices first discussed the legal requirements for a demurrer, which require them to “assume the truth of properly pleaded factual allegations… and gives the appellant (Nartey) the burden” of showing the trial court erred when it sustained it. This led to a discussion of the Unruh Act, in which Nartey argued that UCLA was, in fact, covered by the Act.

The Court of Appeals was not persuaded. After quoting the Unruh Act, Justice Zukin wrote that UCLA is a “public school,” which the California Supreme Court determined in Brennon B. v. Superior Court is not a business establishment covered by the Unruh Act since it “is engaged in the task of educating students… and is not generally understood as being carried out in the commercial, transactional manner that is characteristic of a ‘business establishment.’” Presiding Justice Brian Currey and Audrey Collins concurred in the opinion.

Zukin then elaborated by citing some of the legislative history of the Unruh Act, the focus of which she noted, “is the conduct of private business establishments,” and the Act’s legislative history “suggests the Legislature did not intend the Act to subject public school districts to liability.” She also listed some of the attributes of the types of businesses that are subject to the act, such as “performing business functions, protecting economic value, and operating as the functional equivalent of a commercial enterprise.” None of these traits apply to schools.

Zukin pointed out that Nartey failed to address or distinguish the California Supreme Court’s decision in Brennon B., relying only on arguments that UCLA “generates revenue.” In addition, all of appellant’s complaints relate to the “grading and evaluation” of her dissertation work, not to any business activities conducted by UCLA, such as athletics or intellectual property.

The opinion concluded that Nartey could not cure the deficiencies in her arguments with further, alternative legal amendments. It therefore said there was no basis for finding the trial court abused its discretion when sustaining the Regent’s demurrer without leave to amend.