District Court: IPS must face teacher’s age discrimination claims

A former Indianapolis Public Schools teacher’s age discrimination claims may proceed against her former employer after a district court judge concluded IPS failed to hire her because of her age.

Sherrie Dunn-Lanier, who taught at IPS school for more than 16 years, sued IPS alleging it denied her promotions based on her race and age in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, respectively.

Dunn-Lanier, who is African-American, had worked as an elementary schoolteacher, substitute teacher and tutor for IPS. She was offered a first-grade teaching position in 2015 at a salary of $52,000 after applying for seven different openings. The salary, she said, was $1,500 less than she had previously made as a teacher.

After inquiring about the salary and attempting to speak with the superintendent, the pay issue was not resolved, and IPS ultimately hired another candidate for the position. When one of the hired candidates at IPS School 58 quit, IPS asked Dunn-Lanier if she would be interested in the position. Dunn-Lanier responded six days later that she was interested, but the school’s principal informed her more than a week later that Dunn-Lanier “took too long to respond” to the inquiry.

Dunn-Lanier noted that she had not received notification that the position had been closed before being informed she was too late and that it was still listed as an available position on the IPS website. Dunn-Lanier ultimately accepted a classroom assistant position in May 2016 and retired in September 2016.

Two months before her retirement and at the age of 55, Dunn-Lanier filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accusing IPS of age discrimination based on its failure to award her a teaching position. She also filed a second discrimination charge, claiming race and age discrimination as evidenced by her failure to be hired for a teaching position. The claims alleged that the majority of new hires were younger and white individuals brought in through the Teach for America program.

IPS sought summary judgment on Dunn-Lanier’s suit, arguing several claims raised in her amended complaint were time-barred under the applicable statute of limitations. Senior Judge Sarah Evans Barker for the Southern District Court concluded that all of Dunn-Lanier’s claims of race and age discrimination raised in her second charge were time-barred and thus granted IPS motion in that regard.

However, the district court found her age-discrimination claims in the first EEOC charge were not time-barred, and thus denied IPS’ motion in Dunn-Lanier v. Indianapolis Public Schools, 1:17-cv-03687. First, the district court granted IPS’s motion for summary judgment on Dunn-Lanier’s age discrimination claims at IPS School 42, finding that one individual hired for a position she applied for was older than her. It also found Dunn-Lanier could not provide evidence to prove IPS lied when it stated that a second teacher hired outside of Dunn-Lanier’s protected class had more valuable prior experience with the School 42 administration than she did.

The district court denied IPS’s motion regarding School 58, however, finding that a teacher hired in place of Dunn-Lanier could be found by a jury to be less qualified because she did not have “sixteen years of teaching experience or teacher-of-the-year awards” and that the younger teacher’s only qualifications for the position were her undergraduate grade point average and positive references.

“This conclusion is buttressed by the facts regarding Ms. Dunn-Lanier’s difficulties in February 2016 in getting IPS to clarify whether the teaching position at School 58 was still available,” Barker wrote. “… Considering this evidence as a whole, a reasonable jury could infer that IPS’s justification for hiring (a teacher) who is approximately 30 years younger than Ms. Dunn-Lanier, for the position at School 58 was a pretext for unlawful discrimination and, but for her age, IPS would have hired Ms. Dunn-Lanier.

“Although Ms. Kertes, the principal at School 58, stated on February 29, 2016, that Ms. Dunn-Lanier’s February 18, 2016 email response was untimely, that the position had been offered to someone else, indeed, IPS did not hire Ms. Hindsley until March 7, 2016,” Barker wrote. “Also, there is no evidence in the record to suggest that the application period for the position was closed by February 18; to the contrary, Ms. Dunn-Lanier has adduced evidence to show that the position was still being advertised on the IPS website after that time.”

The district court thus concluded there was sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer that IPS’s failure to hire Dunn-Lanier for the first-grade teaching position at School 58 was based on her age.