7th Circuit reinstates sex discrimination case against Valpo Schools in coaching dispute

A would-be high school running coach who says she was passed over for a coaching job in favor of younger male applicants will be able to make her claim for sex discrimination in court after a majority of the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for Valparaiso Community Schools.

Judges David Hamilton and Joel Flaum remanded for a trial on Molly Joll’s sex discrimination claim Friday in Molly Joll v. Valparaiso Community Schools, 18-3630. Joll has was the coach of the Thomas Jefferson Middle School cross-country teams for several years before resigning in 2013 to support her daughters’ running careers. One year later, however, Joll once again had time for coaching, so she applied for a girls’ coaching position at Valparaiso High School. She did not hear back for nearly a month, but finally, with the help of union officers, she received a text asking her to interview with Principal Reid Amones.

“Joll has substantial experience both as a coach and as a runner herself,” Hamilton wrote in the Friday majority opinion. “She ran cross-country and track all four years of high school and attended Indiana State University, an NCAA Division 1 school, on a full athletic scholarship for both sports. After receiving her master’s degree in education, Joll spent about five years as the girls’ track coach at a junior high school in central Indiana, with a one-year stint as a volunteer track coach at a school in the United Kingdom as part of a Fulbright teachers’ exchange program.” She was also an assistant coach at Valparaiso University, he said.

But rather than discussing her experience, Joll’s interview with Amones focused on her 2013 resignation and whether her parenting duties would allow her to spend enough time on coaching duties. The other applicant, 40-year-old John Arredondo, had also resigned from a coaching job in 2013 for family reasons, but his interview did not feature questions about his family life. Arredondo was eventually selected for the job.

Per protocol, Arredondo’s references were checked only after school officials decided to recommend his hiring to the school board. Joll’s references, however, were contacted within days of her interview, with Amones taking specific note of one concern that her “dominate (sic) personality” meant she would struggle in a subordinate role.

Joll was told Arredondo was selected because of his “more current experience working with high school age athletes.” She instead decided to apply for another coaching position at the high school, this one with the boys’ team, and was once again asked in her interview about family matters.

As with the first job, Joll’s references were handled differently than the successful candidate’s, 28-year-old Ben Kerezman. Kerezman’s references were not checked at all, and he did not have more recent high school coaching experience, Hamilton wrote. Instead, Kerezman was said to have “better rapport with the boys.”

Later, however, athletic director Herb Hofer testified that the only factors considered in the boys coaching position were being a teacher at the high school and recent high school coaching experience. But Hamilton noted Kerezman did not have more recent coaching experience, while Arredondo, the person selected for the girls’ coaching job, did not teach in the school district.

Joll sued the school district in July 2016, claiming violations of Title VII and of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Magistrate Judge John Martin granted summary judgment to the school district on both the age and sex discrimination claims, prompting the instant appeal.

In reinstating the sex discrimination claim, Hamilton first said a jury could reasonably infer that Hofer and Amones did not want to hire a woman for either position, so they took all available steps to ensure Joll, the only woman applicant, was not hired. In support of that finding, the majority pointed to Joll’s initial struggle to get an interview, the fact that her references were contacted sooner than normal, and the family-based question in her interviews.

“Job interviewers are of course entitled to probe applicants in relevant ways, and they are not required to take an applicant’s answers at face value,” the majority wrote. “… But the telling twist in this case is that, although family matters had recently prompted his resignation from a similar position, Arredondo’s commitment was not questioned. He ‘talked shop,’ not kids, with the interviewers.”

On the issue of references, the interviewers chose to give weight to the comment about Joll having a dominant personality, Hamilton said, yet discounted two overwhelmingly positive recommendations she had received. “The point,” he said, “is that a jury could draw on its experience to conclude that the same behavior may be labeled ‘assertive’ in a man and ‘aggressive’ in a woman.”

Further, while the school officials cited inconsistent factors as their reason for choosing the men over Joll, the majority said those factors consistently favored the male applicants. For the girls’ job, Arredondo was credited for having recent high school coaching experience, but for the boys’ job, Kerezman was credited for working at the high school.

“We recognize, of course, that there are ways to tell the story of the school district’s hiring process and decision that are entirely innocent, involving no unlawful discrimination,” Hamilton concluded. “… But because there is at least one reasonable way to tell the story in favor of Joll’s claim of sex discrimination, a jury rather than appellate judges must choose among them.”

In a dissenting opinion, however, Judge Kenneth Ripple said he did not believe Joll provided evidence for a jury to conclude that she would have been awarded either coaching job if she were male.

Specifically as to the girls’ coaching job, Ripple said there was no evidence the school knew Arredondo had resigned because of family issues, while Joll had filed a resignation letter to that effect.

As to the references, he noted the person who made the “dominate personality” comment had previously supervised Joll, so it made sense that his recommendation would be given weight. “Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of how (the reference) might have voiced his legitimate concerns without running afoul of the majority’s concepting of sex-stereotyping,” the dissenting judge wrote.

Further, while Hofer generally did not check references until after deciding to recommend a candidate to the school board, he was recovering from a surgery from the hiring process and had to leave the process in Amones’ hands, Ripple said. Thus, “there is nothing inherently suspect about Dr. Amones’ proceeding in a different manner than Mr. Hofer.”

Finally, as to the boys’ coaching position, Ripple noted, “Kerezman had regular contact with the students and an opportunity to build on this relationship in ways that Ms. Joll could not. It is difficult to argue that this consideration is not a legitimate one.”